UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ GLEN A. PONTIOUS, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Defendant - Appellee. No. 22-6073 (D.C. No. 5:21- CV-00088-G) (W.D. Okla.)

________________ _________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

________________ _________________ Before HARTZ , TYMKOVICH , and MATHESON , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ In this challenge to the 2 020 U.S. Presidential Election, Glen A. Pontious appeals pro se from a district court order dismissing his amended complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Exercising jurisdicti on under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
B ACKGROUND In an amended complaint filed in federa l district court in 2021, Mr. Pontious claimed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was “derelict in [its] duties” for “allow[ing] Joe Biden to run for office,” given “[a]ppere nt [sic] high crimes and misdeanors’s [sic],

* After examining the briefs and appella te record, this pa nel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not ma terially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctr ines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cite d, however, for its persuasi ve value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### January 26, 2023 Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court Appellate Case: 22-6073 Document: 010110804134 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 12 conflict of interest[.]” R. at 28 (capitalizati on omitted). He alleged it was “not fair . . . that [former President Donald Trump] was interfeared [sic] with by . . . frivolous impeachment.” R. at 31 (capitalization omitte d). For relief, he sought $48 million in damages and to “remove the Current U.S. Presidential administra tion via nullification and voiding the 2020 U.S. Pres idential Election and criminal y [sic] prosecute those who brought the fraudlent [sic] charges agains t President Donald Trump.” R. at 36 (capitalization omitted). On the DOJ’s motion, the district cour t dismissed the amended complaint because Mr. Pontious failed to identify a waiver of the DOJ’s immunity from suit. See Normandy Apartments, Ltd. v. U.S. Dep’t of Hous. & Urb. Dev. , 554 F.3d 1290, 1295 (10th Cir. 2009) (“Sovereign immunity generally shield s the United States, its agencies, and its officers acting in their offi cial capacity from suit.”). Mr. Pontious appealed and filed motions in this court asse rting, among other things, that the DOJ is “supporting and aiding in treason by sedition,” Mot. for Emergency Hr’g at 1 (filed Aug. 12, 2022) (capitalizati on omitted), and has conspired with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to commit “Treason[] and Mutiny[] against President Donald J Trump,” Mot. at 3 (filed Sept. 9, 2022).
D ISCUSSION I. Standards of Review “We review de novo the district court’ s dismissal based on sovereign immunity.” Mojsilovic v. Okla. ex rel. Bd. of Regents for Univ. of Okla. , 841 F.3d 1129, 1131 (10th Cir. 2016). Because Mr. Pontius pro ceeds pro se, we construe his arguments liberally, but we “cannot take on the responsi bility of serving as [his] attorney in Appellate Case: 22-6073 Document: 010110804134 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 23 constructing arguments and searching the record.” Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux &
Janer , 425 F.3d 836, 840 (10th Cir. 2005). II. Sovereign Immunity “The defense of sovereign immunity is ju risdictional in nature, depriving courts of subject-matter jurisdiction where applicable.” Normandy Apartments , 554 F.3d at 1295. Thus, the party seeking to assert a claim agai nst the government must identify a specific waiver of sovereign immunity to establish jurisdiction. See id. The waiver “must be unequivocally expressed in statutor y text and will not be implied.” Lane v. Pena , 518 U.S. 187, 192 (1996) (citation omitted). Like the district court, we can find no reference in Mr. Pontius’s amended complaint either to the DOJ’s immunity or to any statut e capable of waiving that immunity. In his district court brief oppos ing the DOJ’s motion to dismiss, Mr. Pontius claimed that the constitutional right to petition the government nullified the DOJ’s immunity, and that by being on social-media “[p]latforms,” the government “signed [its] [s]overeign immunity away.” R. at 64. The district court correctly rejected both arguments. See Christensen v. Ward , 916 F.2d 1462, 1472 -73 (10th Cir. 1990) (determining that the doctrine of sovereig n immunity is consistent with the First Amendment right to petition the govern ment for a redress of grievances); Return Mail, Inc. v. U.S. Postal Serv. , 139 S. Ct. 1853, 1862 (2019) (“Congress must unequivocally express any waiver of sovereign immunity for that waiver to be effective.”). Appellate Case: 22-6073 Document: 010110804134 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 34 On appeal, Mr. Pontius provides no co herent, relevant argument regarding a waiver of sovereign immunity. 1 Indeed, his appellate brief is rife with implausible, incomprehensible, and/or prolix allegations ag ainst various public and private figures and institutions. See, e.g. , Aplt. Br. at 12 (referencing “N azi king rules” and declaring “[t]here is no rule of law[] in North America only dictatorship by corrupt agencies of an illegimate [sic] government pr otected under the color of law by judges” (capitalization omitted)). Briefing of this natu re waives appellate review. See Garrett , 425 F.3d at 841 (holding that pro se litigant’s “conclusory allegations with no citations to the record or any legal authority for support,” together with his disrespectful comments about the district judge’s integrity, “disentitle[d] him to [appellate] review”); Adler v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , 144 F.3d 664, 679 (10th Cir. 1998) (“Arguments inad equately briefed in the opening brief are waived.”).
C ONCLUSION We affirm the district court’s judgment . We deny Mr. Pontius’s pending motions.
See Fed. R. App. P. 27(a)(2)(A) (requiring that motions identify supporting legal argument).
Entered for the Court Timothy M. Tymkovich Circuit Judge

1 To the extent Mr. Pontius cites 18 U. S.C. §§ 287 and 2071(b), neither statute waives the DOJ’s immunity from his civil suit. See 18 U.S.C. § 287 (providing criminal penalties for presen ting a “false, fictitious, or fraudulent” “claim upon or against the United States, or any de partment or agency thereof”); id. § 2071(b) (providing criminal penalties and forfe iture of office if a records custodian unlawfully removes or destroys a record). Appellate Case: 22-6073 Document: 010110804134 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 4