Lin Wood, attorney who challenged Trump's 2020 election loss, gives up law license

Attorney Lin Wood, who filed legal challenges seeking to overturn Donald Trump's 2020 election loss, is relinquishing his law license, electing to retire from practicing rather than face possible disbarment. Multiple states have weighed disciplining him for pushing Trump's continued false claims that he defeated Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, Wood asked officials in his home state of Georgia to "retire" his law license in light of "disciplinary proceedings pending against me." In the request, made in a letter and posted on his Telegram account, Wood acknowledges that he is "prohibited from practicing law in this state and in any other state or jurisdiction and that I may not reapply for admission."

Wood, a licensed attorney in Georgia since 1977, did not immediately respond to an email Wednesday seeking comment on the letter. A listing on the website for the State Bar of Georgia accessed on Wednesday showed him as retired and with no disciplinary infractions on his record.

In the wake of the 2020 election, Trump praised Wood as doing a "good job" filing legal challenges seeking to overturn his loss, though Trump's campaign at times distanced itself from him. Dozens of lawsuits making such allegations were rejected by the courts across the country.

Officials in Georgia had been weighing whether to disbar Wood over his efforts, holding a disciplinary trial earlier this year. Wood sued the state bar in 2022, claiming the bar's request that he undergo a mental health evaluation as part of its probe violated his constitutional rights, but a federal appeals court tossed that ruling, saying Wood failed to show there was "bad faith" behind the request.

In 2021, the Georgia secretary of state's office opened an investigation into where Wood had been living when he voted early in person in the 2020 general election, prompted by Wood's announcement on Telegram that he had moved to South Carolina. Officials ruled that Wood did not violate Georgia election laws.

Wood, who purchased three former plantations totaling more than $16 million, moved to South Carolina several years ago, and unsuccessfully ran for chairman of that state's GOP in 2021.

In May, a Michigan watchdog group filed a complaint against Wood and eight other Trump-aligned lawyers alleging they had committed misconduct and should be disciplined for filing a lawsuit challenging Mr. Biden's 2020 election win in that state. A court previously found the attorneys' lawsuit had abused the court system.

Wood, whose name was on the 2020 Michigan lawsuit, has insisted that the only role he played was telling fellow attorney Sidney Powell he was available if she needed a seasoned litigator. Powell defended the lawsuit and said lawyers sometimes have to raise what she called "unpopular issues."

Other attorneys affiliated with efforts to keep Trump in power following his 2020 election loss have faced similar challenges. Attorney John Eastman, architect of that strategy, faces 11 disciplinary charges in the State Bar Court of California stemming from his development of a dubious legal strategy aimed at having then-Vice President Mike Pence interfere with the certification of Mr. Biden's victory.

Addition to my reply 92 above.

12/03/2020 Video of room where vote ballots were counted at Fulton County, "Hawk's" State Farm Arena, Atlanta, Georgia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c3-QiNLI7M

EXCERPTS of comments by "brandaugment6492" who is critical of Jacki Lynn Pick's explanation:

FYI, there are officials with direct knowledge of ballot-processing procedures, some of whom were in these rooms, some of whom gave instructions to workers, who are now investigating the events and allegations about this video so they can fill in more detail on what happened that day. I think reasonable people would want to hear both sides of the story and they will probably come out within the next few days.
Additional videos:
- About 2 minutes of video footage that was allegedly on the laptop on Ruby Freeman's desk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvRGiFbYlJc
(the person who posted this suggested that the objects passed between Ruby and Shaye Moss may have been smoking-related as it was a nonsmoking facility).
(NOTE: That video is no longer available at YouTube.)
- A four-hour video of ballot-processing during the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhyT-bwYFLY
(includes footage of [Ruby] Freeman)
If you go to the 3:25:15 mark on the long video, you can see one of the bigger machines used in the process.
There's a video on social media that a Fulton county poll worker crumpled up a ballot. The worker was a 'cutter' (the person who opens the outer envelope and removes the inner envelope). The ballot was still in the inner envelope. The paper the worker crumpled was half the size of a ballot (the director identified it as a sheet of instructions). Someone re-captioned the video to make it look like the person had destroyed a ballot.
The cutters are told that they may go home (some have been there since very early in the morning) and they can be seen packing up just before 10:00 pm.
Recap of bins:
5:55 A woman in white (Supervisor of Registration) pulls a bin from under the table (looks like it might be empty? and puts the lid on top).
6:04 The man in a suit takes off his jacket (it's now easy to see his red shirt). In a few instances he makes hand gestures (talking to people?).
6:05 A woman in yellow pulls a bin from under the table and takes it to a desk.
6:16 The woman in white ([election] supervisor) pulls a bin from under the table and takes it to a desk.
6:31 The man in red puts something in his pocket? or tucks his shirt, pulls out a bin from under the table, pauses (like he might be saying something?) and takes it to a desk.
At each desk workers are now processing stacks of papers (scanning them?).
The voice-over says that they are counting ballots, but it's possible these were already counted earlier and these sheets are being scanned. The large gray machines (lower left) have been covered over with cloths. I would like to know the purpose of the large machines (cutting machines maybe?) and the small machines on the desks (each district has slightly different arrangements and models of machines so you can't always tell which is which from an overhead shot). Are they scanners? tabulators? something else?
Elections officials are saying that after the majority of workers had finished their job of opening envelopes, that they left, and poll watchers and press left with them voluntarily, not because they were told to leave. (On a different occasion, they may have been asked to leave for 2 hours because there was a pipe leaking water.)
The State elections monitor was there just before midnight and he says he didn't see any irregular activities.
The workers are not "unobserved" as J. Picks states in the commentary, they are on video. They know there is video security.
There are conflicting stories about whether people were told to "clear out". When there was a water leak problem, this may have happened, but that is not the same as what happened at the end of the day in this video. Many of the workers had finished, and the press and poll watchers left with them.
I'm in favor of elections security and working to make systems fair and accurate, but this commentary is biased and based on incomplete and sometimes erroneous information (plus an assumption of guilt).

About observers and that remark by brandaugment6492, "Robert-lw2tt" replied to brandaugment6492:

State officials have already admitted that there were no observers there like they originally said. Look it up.

Then brandaugment6492 replied to Robert-lw2tt:

In the state of Georgia, poll watchers are permitted but not required by law. I looked up the laws and it says "may" not "shall". So, even though I think poll watchers should be present, they were not breaking the law by continuing to work when the call came in asking them if they could put in a few more hours.

Then Robert-lw2tt replied to brandaugment6492:

Very shady how they sat quietly until everyone left. Have you seen the video of Ruby [Freeman] and her daughter secretly passing the USB drive?

Were Georgia monitors sent home? State officials clash with Trump team over chain of events [by Barnini Chakraborty, Washington Examiner, 12/07/2020]

EXCERPTS:

[Jacki Lynn] Pick said the video showed a staff member telling observers to leave around 10:30 p.m., and that after they left, four election workers stayed behind to count the hidden batch for two hours without any witnesses present.
Richard Barron, Fulton County elections director, pushed back on those claims Friday and said no observers were explicitly told to leave but that some had started to go after they finished their work. As more and more people started to call it a night, they put prepared ballots back in boxes and away under a table to "close out" for the evening.
At that point, election observers and members of the media also started to leave. Then, the election supervisor on site got a call from [Richard] Barron, who told the team to keep scanning the ballots that had already been prepared. Gabriel Sterling, a top election official in Georgia, said it was then that workers pulled the boxes of ballots back out and continued scanning.

Another video, 3:16 minutes:
Georgia election officials shows frame-by-frame of State Farm Arena Election Night video | WSB-TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-9jFuieH_U

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