MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota jury began deliberating Monday on whether Greenpeace defamed a pipeline company and disrupted its controversial Dakota Access Pipeline project using what the plaintiffs argued were malicious and deceptive tactics.
Closing arguments unfolded earlier in the day in the lawsuit brought by Dallas-based Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access against Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. The plaintiffs alleged defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts by the Greenpeace entities to stop the pipeline.
The lawsuit is linked to protests in 2016 and 2017 against the oil pipeline and its controversial Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline as a risk to its water supply. The pipeline has been transporting oil since mid-2017.
Nine jurors and two alternates heard the case after it went to trial in late February. Their verdict will include what damages, if any, to award.
Trey Cox, an attorney for the pipeline company, said Greenpeace “acted as one enterprise to stop DAPL at all costs," referring to the pipeline's acronym. He said the environmental advocacy group exploited a small, disorganized local issue to promote its agenda, calling Greenpeace “master manipulators” and “deceptive to the core.”
He asked the jury to find for the plaintiffs.
“It needs to be done for Morton County. It needs to be done for Morton County’s law enforcement and the next community where Greenpeace exploits an opportunity to push its agenda at any cost,” Cox told the jury, referring to the county where the protests were centered.
A slide he showed the jury highlighted damages per claim totaling nearly $350 million.
Attorneys for the Greenpeace entities denied the allegations, saying Energy Transfer didn't prove its case or meet its burden to prove defamation or damages, and that Greenpeace employees had little or no presence or involvement in the protests.
“Their case just does not add up,” Greenpeace International attorney Courtney DeThomas told the jury.
Greenpeace representatives have criticized the lawsuit as an example of corporations abusing the legal system to go after critics and called it a critical test of free speech and protest rights. An Energy Transfer spokesperson said the case is about Greenpeace not following the law, not free speech.
FILE - In this Thursday Dec. 1, 2016 file photo, the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline stands in the background as a children sled down a hill in Cannon Ball, N.D. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has ordered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to pay more than $54,000 in attorneys' fees and to turn over documents after finding that her office violated Georgia's Open Records Act.
Attorney Ashleigh Merchant represents former Trump campaign staffer Michael Roman, one of the 18 people indicted in August 2023 along with President Donald Trump on allegations that they illegally tried to overturn Trump's 2020 election loss in Georgia. Merchant sued in January 2024, alleging that the district attorney's office had failed to turn over public records she had requested.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rachel Krause found that the failures to comply with the records law “were intentional, not done in good faith, and were substantially groundless and vexatious.” Because Willis and her office “lacked substantial justification” for not complying, Merchant is entitled to attorneys' fees and litigation expenses totaling just over $54,000, Krause found.
Krause ordered Willis to search for and turn over all records responsive to Merchant's requests. The documents and payment are to be delivered within 30 days of Friday's order.
A spokesperson for Willis' office said Monday that they plan to appeal the order.
Merchant said she filed the lawsuit as a last resort after Willis' office repeatedly failed to produce documents.
“We definitely didn't want to file suit,” she said. “They were just ignoring it and telling us that documents didn't exist that we knew existed and resisting at every move, so we really didn't have a choice.”
Willis' office was “openly hostile” to Merchant and testimony showed that Merchant's requests “were handled differently than other requests,” Krause wrote in her order. Open records officer Dexter Bond said during a hearing that he refused to communicate by phone with Merchant, even though it was his regular practice to call the requester if a request was unclear.
Treating Merchant's requests this way “indicates a lack of good faith,” Krause wrote.
Among the records Merchant sought were reports provided to Willis' office by companies hired “to track the impact of Willis' statements to the media and whether such statements were viewed favorably by the public,” according to a court filing. The filing says Willis began contracting with those companies just before she and her office sought to indict Trump, Roman and others.
Merchant also asked for a copy of the non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement that employees of the district attorney's office are required to sign, as well as a list of attorneys Willis had hired.
The Georgia Court of Appeals in December ruled that Willis and her office could not continue to prosecute the election interference case against Trump and others. Willis in January asked the Georgia Supreme Court to review and reverse that ruling, and the high court has not yet said whether it will take up the case.
The intermediate appeals court's ruling was based on an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case. It was a bombshell filing by Merchant in January 2024 that first exposed that relationship publicly, alleging that the relationship created a conflict of interest that should disqualify Willis and her office from the case.
A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia. The alleged scheme included Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to help find enough votes to beat Biden. Four people have pleaded guilty. Trump and the others, including Roman, have pleaded not guilty.
Even if the Georgia Supreme Court agrees to hear the case and eventually rules in Willis’ favor, it seems unlikely that she will be able to prosecute Trump while he's the sitting president. But there are 14 other defendants, including Roman, who still face charges in the case.
FILE - Attorney Ashleigh Merchant looks on in court, Feb. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, Pool, File)
FILE - Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looks on during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, Friday, March, 1, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, Pool, File)
