US District Court Judge Timothy Batten canceled a planned Friday hearing in his court to review an appeal from one-time Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell because Powell may have accidentally appealed the case to the wrong court, noting that the cancelation was entirely “attributable to the Plaintiff–not the Court.”
In a notice posted by Georgia Public Broadcasting reporter Stephen Fowler, Judge Batten noted that the hearing had been scheduled for Friday to hear Powell’s argument that the ten-day temporary restraining order he issued Saturday, to preserve files on voting machines in three Georgia counties, was not sufficient and should apply to all counties in the state. (The order did not cover the entire state because the suit Powell filed only covered the three specified counties.)
Powell, however, appealed Batten’s TRO, a motion that Batten notes is “not directly appealable” because of the innate nature of a temporary restraining order. In her motion, Powell apparently decrees that the District Court “divests [itself] of responsibility”–something that a plaintiff’s counsel can’t unilaterally do.
In language that seems somewhat annoyed and bemused, Batten notes, “Any delay in conducting the hearing on the claims in Plaintiffs’ complaint would be attributable to the Plaintiffs–not this Court–since the Plaintiffs are the ones who filed the notice of appeal.”
In a footnote, Batten comments on an usual part of Powell’s appeal: “[T]he scope of the relief sought in Plaintiffs’ motion for emergency relief is narrower than the scope of Plaintiffs’ complaint.”