Arizona Kraken Sinking Slowly Over Weekend, Judge Moves Up Hearing On Motions To Dismiss and Denies Sidney Powell Request To Triple Their Presentation Time

The Arizona Kraken case brought by former Trump attorney Sidney Powell (and other attorneys) is not in good shape as it heads towards hearings in federal District Court on Tuesday and Thursday.

Judge Diane Humetewa initially had given the plaintiffs the Tuesday hearing to present evidence supporting their request for a temporary restraining order which would keep Arizona from moving forward to approve its slate of Biden electors. However, upon reviewing four Motions to Dismiss filed on Saturday by opposing parties (Gov. Ducey, Secy/State Hobbs, Maricopa County, Biden electors/Democrats), Humetewa issued a Saturday night order re-setting the Tuesday time for hearing the new motions, and pushing back the TRO hearing to Thursday.

This was not a good sign for the plaintiffs, and they filed a Saturday night motion asking to triple their TRO evidentiary "presentation" from one hour to three hours. (That motion is published below.) This would permit them to boil down their "showing" to only three expert witnesses - Spider (his redacted name); Russell Ramsland and James Phillip Waldron.

Judge Humetewa was not amused and issued a flat denial Sunday evening. Simply, "IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs' Motion for Modification of Hearing Schedule, in which they seek to have three hours to present expert witnesses during the Oral Argument set for Tuesday, December 8, 2020 on Defendants' pending Motions to Dismiss, is DENIED. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED the December 8, 2020 hearing will solely be on the arguments presented in the Motions to Dismiss."

The second sentence appears to be a warning that she will not countenance any sneaky - or, accidental - efforts to bring in the theories about "the vulnerability to outside infiltration of the Dominion and other voting machines and software used by the elections officials in Arizona. (Plaintiffs also want to "quantify the amount of fraud into a tally of illegal votes that easily overturns the 2020 election results."

On Thursday, Judge Humetewa warned plaintiffs that the presence of Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward as a plaintiff in two separate laswsuits could be seen as a waste of judicial resources, and she suggested the attorneys read the Arizona statute about post-canvass election contests.

This case brought by Ward, a couple of Republican state lawmakers and others, is one of three Arizona cases still active. The Plaintiffs are represented by Powell, Lin Wood, Arizona attorney Alex Kolodin and others.

Kraken - Motion for Additional Time by arizonaspolitics on Scribd

Here are the Motions to Dismiss filed by Governor Doug Ducey, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Maricopa County, and the Arizona Democratic Party.

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