An attorney involved in efforts to upend the results of the 2020 election was arrested in federal court in Washington this week and ordered to turn herself in to authorities in Michigan as civil and criminal cases involving claims of voter fraud collided.
Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Stefanie Lambert’s arrest came more than a week after officials had issued a bench warrant for failing to appear for a hearing in her criminal case in Michigan, where she is charged with illegally breaching voting machines, and days after she came under scrutiny for the release of documents as the attorney for an ally of former president Donald Trump in a federal defamation case.
Lambert was held at a D.C. detention center as a “fugitive from justice” until Tuesday, when a judge released her on an unsecured $10,000 bond with orders to turn herself in to the police in Michigan by Wednesday or face rearrest.
“As long as there is still a warrant out for your arrest, you can continue to be arrested over and over again,” D.C. Superior Court Judge Heide L. Herrmann told Lambert at her bail review hearing. The judge added, “If you don’t appear, you will owe $10,000.”
Lambert was in D.C. federal court Monday representing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for repeatedly and falsely saying the company’s machines were used to tamper with votes in 2020. But she was the one being questioned, asked why she made public thousands of Dominion documents she had sworn to keep confidential.
Right before her arrest, Lambert admitted that she used the Dominion documents to argue that the case against her in Michigan is illegitimate. She said she also shared them with a southwestern Michigan sheriff who was investigated as part of the alleged voting machine plot. Over 2,000 pages of the documents were put on the social media site X over the weekend by an account using the sheriff’s name and photograph.
Dominion attorney Davida Brook said in court that “the cat is out of the bag” and there is no hope of getting those papers out of the public domain. But she said Lambert should be removed from the defamation case and face penalties for violating court rules and fueling fresh violent threats against Dominion employees.
“It has been nearly four years. When does it stop?” Brook asked the court. She said the company sued Byrne and others “to stop the lies, to end the threats of violence.” Now, she said, Lambert was “using these very lawsuits … to spread yet more lies and do yet more harm.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya said she needed more time to decide whether Lambert should be disqualified as Byrne’s attorney. But the judge said that in the meantime, both Lambert and Byrne could not have access to any of Dominion’s records, and that Lambert must move to seal the Michigan court document containing them.
After the hearing ended, the other attorneys left while Lambert was asked by the judge to stay behind. Several U.S. Marshals then entered the courtroom and locked the door behind them.
Lambert’s Michigan defense attorney, Daniel Hartman, said Monday that her failure to appear in court in Michigan “was not willful.” Instead he said it was because of “mixed messages” about whether she had to get fingerprinted while challenging the court’s orders. Just before Lambert appeared in court in D.C., Hartman asked the Michigan judge to reconsider the warrant for her arrest, calling the whole case a “tragedy.”
In a filing Monday, prosecutors in Michigan said they had tried to avoid having Lambert arrested “for fear that would unnecessarily traumatize her children.” But, they said, she “has been given several opportunities to turn herself in and has failed to do so,” and that there was no ambiguity about her requirement to show up in court.
State of Michigan vs. Stephanie Lambert
Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Stefanie Lambert’s arrest came more than a week after officials had issued a bench warrant for failing to appear for a hearing in her criminal case in Michigan, where she is charged with illegally breaching voting machines, and days after she came under scrutiny for the release of documents as the attorney for an ally of former president Donald Trump in a federal defamation case.
Lambert was held at a D.C. detention center as a “fugitive from justice” until Tuesday, when a judge released her on an unsecured $10,000 bond with orders to turn herself in to the police in Michigan by Wednesday or face rearrest.
“As long as there is still a warrant out for your arrest, you can continue to be arrested over and over again,” D.C. Superior Court Judge Heide L. Herrmann told Lambert at her bail review hearing. The judge added, “If you don’t appear, you will owe $10,000.”
Lambert was in D.C. federal court Monday representing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for repeatedly and falsely saying the company’s machines were used to tamper with votes in 2020. But she was the one being questioned, asked why she made public thousands of Dominion documents she had sworn to keep confidential.
Right before her arrest, Lambert admitted that she used the Dominion documents to argue that the case against her in Michigan is illegitimate. She said she also shared them with a southwestern Michigan sheriff who was investigated as part of the alleged voting machine plot. Over 2,000 pages of the documents were put on the social media site X over the weekend by an account using the sheriff’s name and photograph.
Dominion attorney Davida Brook said in court that “the cat is out of the bag” and there is no hope of getting those papers out of the public domain. But she said Lambert should be removed from the defamation case and face penalties for violating court rules and fueling fresh violent threats against Dominion employees.
“It has been nearly four years. When does it stop?” Brook asked the court. She said the company sued Byrne and others “to stop the lies, to end the threats of violence.” Now, she said, Lambert was “using these very lawsuits … to spread yet more lies and do yet more harm.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya said she needed more time to decide whether Lambert should be disqualified as Byrne’s attorney. But the judge said that in the meantime, both Lambert and Byrne could not have access to any of Dominion’s records, and that Lambert must move to seal the Michigan court document containing them.
After the hearing ended, the other attorneys left while Lambert was asked by the judge to stay behind. Several U.S. Marshals then entered the courtroom and locked the door behind them.
Lambert’s Michigan defense attorney, Daniel Hartman, said Monday that her failure to appear in court in Michigan “was not willful.” Instead he said it was because of “mixed messages” about whether she had to get fingerprinted while challenging the court’s orders. Just before Lambert appeared in court in D.C., Hartman asked the Michigan judge to reconsider the warrant for her arrest, calling the whole case a “tragedy.”
In a filing Monday, prosecutors in Michigan said they had tried to avoid having Lambert arrested “for fear that would unnecessarily traumatize her children.” But, they said, she “has been given several opportunities to turn herself in and has failed to do so,” and that there was no ambiguity about her requirement to show up in court.
State of Michigan vs. Stephanie Lambert