It's not normal or appropriate for a judge to include that in his judgment. I don't think he brings up the lawyers to show that he seems guilty, but to show that he definitely is taking this seriously. Plaintiff has really good evidence, suspect has lawyered up in a BIG way, and the defendant is just kind of doing nothing. Whether he's guilty or not, I think the judge is trying to point out to them that this is a major case and they're the only ones not acting like it.

A court can draw adverse inference based on defendant's actions. So yes the judge can say that, but you'll note he says "we're not there yet, I don't know." and words to that effect. He is warning them that this doesn't look good for you but I haven't made up my mind so don't take this as judgment.

The case is not at trial yet. They're still in discovery and coming up on a possible preliminary injunction. Evidence is coming in and going on record, but it's not evaluated at this stage. That's why the judge makes remarks like "we're not there yet".

This is a hearing for a preliminary injunction. It comes before the actual trial. So we're pretty close to "there", for the purposes of the injunction. The idea is you stop the (possibly) bad behaviour based on the evidence at hand, to prevent long term damage while the trial winds its way through the courts.

Levandowski isn't a defendant in this case, Uber is. By all accounts he could tell them to fuck off, and he pretty much does that if you read the transcript.

It's an absurd position to take. Maybe he picked his lawyers based on quality of the lawyers he'd be facing. I've met some of Google's lawyers, and if I were being sued by them, I'd get the best damn lawyers my money could buy.