A Texas judge on Thursday dismissed the petition brought by State Bar of Texas’ Commission for Lawyer Discipline alleging that attorney Sidney Powell had violated legal ethics rules with her work on former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election reversal gambits.
Judge Andrea Bouressa, who presides in Texas’ 471st District Court, said the commission had not met its burden in proving that Powell had run afoul of Texas’ attorney code of conduct. The judge also knocked the commission for not properly labeling its exhibits in its filing, leading her to only consider two of the exhibits the commission had filed.
It is possible that the dismissal order could be appealed, but a spokesperson for the disciplinary commission declined to comment. The attorney who represented Powell in the disciplinary proceedings did not respond to CNN’s inquiry.
The disciplinary proceedings for the ex-Trump attorney unfolded in state court in Texas, where she is licensed, after a March 1 petition from the Texas Bar’s disciplinary commission asked the court to find her in violation of the professional code for attorneys in the state.
As CNN previously reported, those who have sought disciplinary responses for Trump’s legal allies say the post-election conduct crossed ethical lines into the realm of professional misconduct – and that the tactics were well outside the normal bounds of legal challenges to election procedures.
A number of former Trump lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, have faced state bar reviews.