Left: Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File). Center: Tina Peters (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File). Right: Stefanie Lambert attends a rally for Republican candidates in 2022 (Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP).
A U.S. magistrate judge who has fielded but not yet ruled on Dominion Voting Systems’ motion to disqualify a “Kraken” lawyer from representing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in an ongoing defamation case in Washington, D.C., said Monday that the defendant and his attorney Stefanie Lambert are “expressly prohibited” from sharing discovery “anywhere outside this case,” and that this applies as well to the Colorado 2020 election-related criminal case of ex-Mesa County clerk Tina Peters (R), who is set for trial this week.
The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya said in “abundantly clear” terms that, even though it seems a Colorado judge smacked down a Peters subpoena of Lambert for “documents and testimony from this litigation,” discovery cannot be shared “absent express Court order.”
Upadhyaya said that ruling applies not only to Lambert and Byrne, but also to John Case, who is an attorney for both Peters and Byrne.
“This order applies to ALL of the discovery that [Dominion] Plaintiffs have produced in this litigation. It likewise applies to ALL of Defendant Byrne’s counsel who have gained access to Plaintiffs’ discovery, including Ms. Lambert and Mr. John Case,” the order said. “Mr. Case has not entered any notice of appearance in this matter and the Court did not learn of his involvement until Plaintiffs’ filing at 113, but he is nevertheless expressly required to adhere to the Protective Order 79 at the very least because he represents that he signed an Undertaking to do so.”
“In sum, Defendant and ALL of his counsel are expressly prohibited from producing any discovery obtained from Plaintiffs here in the Peters Criminal Case in Colorado pending resolution of this Motion,” the magistrate added, setting additional response deadlines for early August.
Also on Monday, Lambert filed documents that said Case “has not shown any of the materials concerning Dominion to his client, Ms. Peters, in the Colorado action” — as she accused Dominion of trying to hide behind a protective order “as if it were a blanket prohibition of all disclosures to the public,” even “legitimate congressional and law enforcement inquiries, not to mention subpoena in criminal cases in which the information Dominion seeks to hide provides exculpatory evidence for the defense.”
Earlier in July, Dominion said it was alarmed that there appeared to be a “highly-orchestrated scheme” to “disseminate” discovery through the criminal case of Peters, claiming that Lambert — the twice-indicted local counsel in the failed 2020 election-denying Michigan “Kraken” lawsuit who was initially sanctioned and then unsanctioned for her participation in that case — had been issued a subpoena from Case that could give her “virtually unfettered, unilateral discretion to produce all of the documents produced by Dominion in this matter—and anything else she deems ‘relevant to the defense”” of Peters.
Of note, Dominion has been trying to have Lambert disqualified from representing Byrne for months — specifically, since March, when a former lawyer for Byrne notified the voting machine company of a “breach,” whereby access to the “entire repository” of Dominion discovery documents was handed to an election-denying sheriff in Michigan.
Those documents, Dominion said, were then posted on the internet and formed the basis of Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf’s March 17 letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, discussing an investigation of Dominion employees for potential “conspiracy crimes, wire services fraud, honest services fraud, and perjury charges.”
Lambert and Byrne cited emails from discovery written in “Serbian and foreign languages” that they claimed were “evidence of criminal violations,” namely, “top level Dominion employees directing and tasking foreign nationals to remotely access voting machines utilized in the United States during the November 3, 2020 election.” Dominion responded by dismissing the “xenophobic conclusion is that any email from non-US-based Dominion personnel is conclusive evidence of criminal activity.”
Dominion more recently unearthed what it described as “harmful,” “seemingly collusive efforts” between Lambert, Byrne, and Case to get around a protective order in the lawsuit through a subpoena of Lambert in the Peters case.
“Previously unknown to Dominion or this Court, a Colorado attorney named John Case, who is working with Ms. Lambert on Mr. Byrne’s defense in this case, has reviewed Dominion Discovery Material. Mr. Case is also currently defending Mesa County, CO clerk Tina Peters on criminal charges,” court documents said. “In a recent public filing in that criminal case, he purported to reference and incorrectly characterized Dominion Discovery Material. Mr. Case is the same attorney who subpoenaed the production of Dominion Discovery Material from Ms. Lambert […] Yet neither Mr. Byrne nor Ms. Lambert notified the Court of these facts, just as neither has done anything to stop Mr. Case.”
Byrne, who once told of “trysts” with convicted Russian agent Maria Butina and has said that he shelled out $1 million to a lawyer who initially defended Peters in the Colorado case, recently caught attention for his reported remarks on X Spaces about law enforcement and the Peters case, which is going to trial after months of delay.
“[T]hey should be throwing in the towel and just surrendering and dropping this case against Tina because those who don’t are going to end up facing a piano wire and a blowtorch before this is over if I have anything to do with it,” Byrne reportedly said of law enforcement. “So I know that’s probably another felony, but f— it — threatening them like that — but there we are.”
“I don’t care how many felonies I’ve committed, and I don’t care that I’m committing felonies by threatening you,” he reportedly added. “You folks do your job or when this is over, the folks who are part of this are going to be facing, you know, piano wire and blowtorches before this is over. So you start doing your job and stop worrying about me.”
The Washington Post reported that when asked about the remarks, Byrne called them “obviously a metaphor.”
“Please be aware that my turns of phrase like that are metaphoric expressions. There’s been no one more committed to peaceful resolution of this than I,” a Byrne text reportedly said.
Peters, an ally of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell featured in the the Lindell-backed 2020 election conspiracy movie “[S]election Code,” tried and failed to sue U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in a bid to block both Colorado and the feds from “conducting and proceeding with criminal proceedings, including investigations and prosecutions.”
Separate and apart from the Colorado case, Peters, Lindell, and others were identified in 2022 as “subjects” of a federal investigation into potential identity theft, intentional damage to a protected computer, and conspiracy, a probe that memorably resulted in the seizure of Lindell’s cellphone in a Hardee’s drive-thru.
Peters was represented by Case in the failed civil suit against the government. Case is now representing Peters in the Colorado criminal case and fighting allegations that his client tampered with election equipment, attempted to influence public servants, and engaged in official misconduct by allowing an unauthorized third party to make copies of voting machine hard drives, leading “confidential digital images” of county Dominion Voting Systems equipment and passwords to be “published on the internet.”
While Peters has maintained that she was persecuted for asking questions about the 2020 election and warning about future elections, Byrne indicated in a post on X that he does not think the trial itself will expose 2020 election corruption — because the “fix” is in.
“It would if it were any normal trial. However, the corrupt DA and the corrupt judge are trying to fix it so Tina cannot bring in any of the evidence that her actions led to,” he wrote on Tuesday. “Instead, they wish to confine it to Mickey Mouse. ‘you gave someone a fake ID badge’ charges.”
The Daily Sentinel reported that opening statements could happen as soon as Thursday or possibly Friday.
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