A federal judge in Michigan has sanctioned a team of nine pro-Trump lawyers, including Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, who sought to overturn the state’s 2020 elections as part of a sweeping effort across the nation to challenge Joe Biden’s presidential victory via court action.

In a 110-page ruling released on Wednesday, judge Linda Parker of the federal district court in Detroit ruled that the attorneys who alleged widespread election fraud in Michigan presented unsubstantiated claims and abused the justice system.

“This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process,” Parker wrote. “This case was never about fraud – it was about undermining the People’s faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so,” she added.

Parker ordered the lawyers to pay legal fees to the city of Detroit and state of Michigan, and will require them to attend legal education classes on pleading standards and election law within six months.

She also referred the lawyers to the Michigan attorney grievance commission and other appropriate disciplinary authorities, where they could face further investigation and potential suspension or disbarment in the state.

In a frenzied effort in the swing state of Michigan, then president Donald Trump last November met with Republican leaders from the state at the White House in an increasingly desperate attempt to subvert democracy after a series of courtroom defeats over his and his campaign’s allegations of voter fraud.

This was all despite officials at the local and federal level declaring it the most secure election in American history.

The Michigan lawsuit, which was filed in late November, was one of a series of lawsuits known as the “Kraken” cases that Powell filed across the country, alleging that Dominion Voting System’s voting machines were deliberately tampered with.

The lawsuit argued that Biden’s win was fraudulent and asked Parker to declare Trump the winner of the state’s 16 electoral college votes.

Parker rejected the request in December, writing: “If granted, the relief would disenfranchise the votes of the more than 5.5 million Michigan citizens who, with dignity, hope, and a promise of a voice, participated in the 2020 general Election.”

Wednesday’s ruling marked the latest development in a series of legal woes mounting against pro-Trump attorneys who promoted election conspiracies.

In January, Dominion Voting Systems sued Powell and Trump’s former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit. A month later, Smartmatic USA, a rival election-technology company, sued the two lawyers for $2.7bn.

Meanwhile, Lin Wood was facing his own legal headaches in Georgia, where he is challenging a state bar request that he take a confidential mental competency exam after it conducted an extensive review of his alleged legal misconduct over election challenges.

In July, a US appeals court suspended Giuliani from practicing law in Washington DC, a month after he was suspended from practicing law in New York after a court ruled that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public in trying to overturn the election results”.

One of the sanctioned lawyers from the Michigan lawsuit, Scott Hagerstrom, responded to Wednesday’s ruling, saying: “This is all political. This is all about sticking it to Donald Trump and the Republicans.”

The other eight lawyers involved have yet to comment on the ruling.