Patrick
Byrne,
the
Overstock.com
weirdo
who
backed
Trump’s
“Stop
the
Steal”
effort
in
2020,
outcrazied
a
federal
judge
in
California
this
week,
narrowly
escaping
a
default
judgment
in
the
defamation
suit
brought
by
Hunter
Biden.
The
litigation
is
a
Mad
Libs
acid
trip
freakshow.
The
precipitating
event
was
a
rambling
interview
Byrne
gave
for
the
inaugural
edition
of
something
called
Capitol
Times
Magazine
in
which
he
accused
Joe
and
Hunter
Biden
of
a
bribery
scheme
involving
Iranian
nukes.
Five
months
later,
Hunter
Biden
sued
Byrne
for
defamation
in
the
Central
District
of
California.
The
complaint
was
part
of
a
spate
of
litigation
the
former
president’s
son
filed,
including
lawsuits
against
Rudy
Giuliani,
a
former
Trump
White
House
aide
turned
anti-Biden
content
creator,
and
the
IRS.
Most
of
those
suits
have
dried
up,
but
the
case
against
Byrne
persists
—
likely
because,
unlike
his
erstwhile
pal
Rudy,
Byrne
is
still
solvent.
The
case
proceeded
in
somewhat
chaotic
fashion.
Byrne
claimed
to
be
hiding
from
Venezuelan
assassins
in
Dubai
and
refused
to
return
to
the
US
to
be
deposed.
But
finally
after
multiple
postponements
and
motions
for
sanctions,
the
day
of
trial
arrived
on
Tuesday.
Sixty
jurors
were
assembled
for
voir
dire.
And
then
…
Judge
Stephen
Wilson
has
been
on
the
bench
since
1985.
In
Los
Angeles.
This
man
has
seen
some
shit.
And
yet
faced
with
the
Byrne’s
peculiar
brand
of
chaos,
he
all
but
shorted
out.
On
Tuesday
morning,
Byrne
was
not
in
the
courtroom,
and
neither
was
his
lawyer,
Michael
Murphy.
Instead,
three
other
lawyers
were
at
the
table.
Local
counsel
included
Eric
Neff,
a
former
LA
County
prosecutor
forced
out
after
filing
a
bogus
election
fraud
case,
and
Tom
Yu,
whose
practice
appears
to
consist
entirely
of
defending
cops
in
civil
and
criminal
actions.
The
new
lead
attorney
was
one
Stefanie
Lambert,
familiar
to
readers
of
this
website
as
Byrne’s
lawyer
in
the
defamation
case
brought
in
DC
by
Dominion
Voting
Systems.
In
that
case,
she
managed
to
get
herself
kicked
out
after
repeatedly
sharing
protected
discovery
data
—
but
not
before
getting
herself
arrested
in
the
courtroom
on
an
outstanding
warrant
from
her
home
state
of
Michigan
for
tampering
with
voting
machines.
Lambert
said
that
her
motion
for
pro
hac
admission
had
been
filed
that
morning,
and
cheerfully
announced
that
she’d
been
managing
the
case
from
behind
the
scenes
for
months
and
was
ready
to
proceed
with
the
trial.
Unsurprisingly,
the
court
had
concerns.
And
so
did
the
plaintiffs,
who
noted
that
Lambert
was
out
on
bond
on
two
felony
charges
and
had
somehow
forgotten
to
mention
in
her
sworn
declaration
that
her
PHV
application
had
been
denied
in
the
Middle
District
of
Florida
just
six
weeks
earlier
in
yet
another
defamation
suit
against
Byrne.
After
a
brief
break,
Judge
Wilson
denied
Lambert’s
PHV
application,
ordered
her
to
remove
herself
from
the
counsel
table,
and
told
Neff
he
was
in
charge
of
the
case.
He
also
informed
Neff
that
the
lawyer
is
supposed
to
stand
while
addressing
the
court
—
something
which
appeared
to
be
news
to
the
lawyer.
But
it
was
not
meant
to
be!
After
another
break,
Neff
and
Yu
returned
to
inform
the
court
that
they
had
both
been
fired.
“That
must
have
happened
in
the
last
hour,”
the
judge
gaped
incredulously.
“It
happened
in
the
last
ten
minutes,
Your
Honor,”
Yu
conceded.
Which
is
just
as
well,
really,
since,
as
it
turns
out,
Neff
isn’t
admitted
to
the
bar
of
the
Central
District
of
California.
Plaintiff’s
counsel
promptly
moved
to
hold
the
defendant
in
default,
since
he’d
failed
to
appear
for
trial.
And
Judge
Wilson
told
the
parties
he’d
hold
a
show
cause
hearing
on
the
motion
for
default
at
9:30
the
following
morning.
That
evening,
Byrne
filed
a
motion
for
reconsideration,
demanding
that
the
court
reverse
its
decision
to
deny
PHV
admission
to
Lambert,
decrying
it
as
an
abuse
of
discretion,
and
vowing
to
take
an
immediate
appeal
to
the
Ninth
Circuit
to
vindicate
his
Sixth
Amendment
right
to
counsel.
It
described
Lambert
as
an
election
law
expert,
“the
premier
specialized
attorney
in
the
County
in
this
niche
area
of
law.”
This
language
sounds
strikingly
like
an
objection
Lambert
filed
to
her
disqualification
from
the
Dominion
case,
in
which
she
described
herself
as
“the
foremost
leading
expert
advocate
and
attorney
in
the
country,
who
has
all
the
knowledge
concerning
Dominion’s
voting
machine
systems,
their
flaws,
and
the
collusion
and
involvement
by
foreign
nationals
and
foreign
elements
directly
in
federal
elections,
is
telling.”
But
here
the
document
was
signed
by
Florida
lawyer
Peter
Ticktin,
Donald
Trump’s
former
boarding
school
roommate
who
served
as
local
counsel
in
the
Clinton
RICO
trollsuit
that
got
the
president
$1
million
in
sanctions.
His
PHV
application
in
the
Byrne
case
was
approved
July
24,
although
he
was
not
among
the
many
attorneys
in
court
on
Tuesday.
In
the
event,
Judge
Wilson
denied
Biden’s
request
for
a
default
judgment
and
postponed
the
trial
yet
again,
this
time
to
October
14.
The
defendant
was
ordered
to
appoint
new
counsel
by
August
15
and
submit
to
further
discovery
on
his
finances.
Lambert’s
motion
to
reconsider
her
pro
hac
bid
was
rejected,
and
Ticktin’s
admission
was
retroactively
voided.
All
in
all,
another
big
win
for
Team
Bananapants
Crazy.
Liz
Dye produces
the
Law
and
Chaos Substack and podcast.
You
can
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to
her
Substack
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