On December 5, Ralph Nader filed this response brief in Serody v Nader, the case over whether his bank in the District of Columbia should be required to give about $80,000 of Nader’s money to the people who challenged his petition in Pennsylvania in 2004.

The rebuttal brief is only 10 pages. Nader had already pointed out to the D.C. court that the Pennsylvania court order should not be blindly accepted, because the proceedings before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had been tainted. Nader had earlier alleged to the D.C. court that the attorneys for his opponents had close ties to various members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that had not been revealed.

The response by Nader’s opponents had been to confirm the truth of Nader’s charges, but to say that no law had been broken. The recent Nader response points out that legality is not the point. Judicial ethics rules require attorneys to reveal connections between themselves and the judges hearing their case.