It’s a lovely summer morning as I type these words. The Sun is shining, there are birds singing, and up in Denver, there are judges who are judging. Yes, it is the kind of morning that reminds me of those halcyon days of my youth and what a great kid I was. At least, that’s how I choose to remember it.

I wasn’t an especially naughty kid, though I do remember trying to figure out exactly how much of the chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge I could eat before my mom would notice it missing when it came time to finally make the cookies. But beyond stealing dough, I was pretty well behaved.

So, why was I a good boy, at least most (Ed: some?) of the time? Well, I’d love to talk about my innate strength of character and my sense of right and wrong, but if I’m honest, I suspect when I was a kid my real worry were the possible consequences of my actions. I still have seared into my brain a memory of a neighbor kid I often played with walking home with his dad, head hung low, as they returned from him apologizing to the clerk at the gas station from which my friend had shoplifted and been caught. I couldn’t imagine what was awaiting him at home, consequence-wise. Shiver!

Which, of course, brings me to the courtroom of US District Court Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neueiter…

A recent Colorado Politics story documented an awkward day in court for two lawyers who had been swept up in a certain former president’s big lie. They sued Dominion Voting Systems, Facebook, and elected officials in not one, but four different states. But the recent hearing was not about that case. That case, you see, had been dismissed a while back. No, this hearing was about, (perhaps you guessed it from the clever foreshadowing above), consequences for filing a frivolous and specious claim in the first place. They claimed that the Dominion Voting Systems software had been cleverly programed to, well, steal the election from Trump by switching votes around and other nefarious stuff.

But as it turns out, the voting software that Dominion created was used in no less than 24 states, and not just the five or so that Team Trump (TT)  decided to sue. Apparently, the system worked just fine in the other states, including states Trump won, but somehow morphed into evil vote stealing mode in a handful of states. The plaintiffs were asking for $1000 for each voter they claimed had been disenfranchised, which came out to $160 billion, slightly less than the GDP of Hungary.

Dominion was, well, a tad miffed at being assailed in conservative media as being a corrupt corporation, as their good name is vital to them keeping the doors open. So, given the completely bogus nature of the case against them (which again, was dismissed long ago), they decided to countersue, and to create, well, consequences for those people who recklessly attacked their good name.

Thus, we find ourselves in Judge Neueiter’s courtroom, wherein he asked the two lawyers if they had done any real digging and fact checking, or if they just took things off the internet and the TT playbook. One of the lawyers responded by noting his long legal career, in which he had, “developed a keen sense of reason and connecting the dots.” The judge did not appear to be deeply impressed. He asked the lawyers, “Did you analyze any of the information, pick up the phone and call them, ask difficult questions?” Not so much, but they did say they had read lots of stuff and had looked at the other (unsuccessful) lawsuits filed by TT people.

The lawyer representing Dominion, former Boulder County DA Stan Garnett (full disclosure: I know Stan a little bit) argued that the lawsuit was based on “nonsense from the internet,” and that the lawyers didn’t research the facts because their alleged facts don’t hold up to any scrutiny, yet damage a good Colorado company with 250 employees and a stellar reputation. It is important to remember that TT lost about 60 lawsuits challenging the election results, often in cased heard before GOP-appointed judges and a few Trump-appointed judges. He did win one tiny side case, regarding not counting a handful of ballots in one state that the state hadn’t planned to count in any case. 

So, consequences anyone?

The judge up in Denver will decide if the aforementioned lawyers should face sanctions for filing a silly (not a legal term) case without having done the proper due diligence. They could face an order that they pay the legal fees of a “fleet of defendants,” which would likely be a big number, though less than $160 billion, luckily for them.

Not long after our nation was founded, and as it found its way through a new and still uncertain legal system, Alexander Hamilton said something quite profound, which wasn’t unusual for him. In the case of Croswell v. New York, Hamilton introduced the then-novel idea that something can’t be libel if it is, in fact, true. But what really continues to resonate today, and certainly in the Denver courtroom noted above, is what he said we must do via the judicial system. Hamilton declared that “We ought to resist, resist, resist until we hurl the demagogues and tyrants from their imagined thrones.” 

The courts remain a vital and all-too-often final bulwark against attempted tyranny. Let’s hope there are significant consequences for lawyers that knowingly file nonsensical claims that, at their core, seek to undo the results of a free and fair election (spoiler: it was). 

And given Trump’s affinity for gold throne-like chairs, Hamilton’s words are as important today as they were in his day.