Trump team filing lawsuit
PHILADELPHIA: United States President Donald Trump’s legal team repeated its vow yesterday to bring a wave of new lawsuits contesting Joe Biden’s win of the presidency, starting with a suit to be filed today alleging that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were awash in vote fraud.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, elaborated on the pending suits in an interview on Fox News, but either presented no evidence to back up his allegations or reiterated complaints that the GOP has already argued in previous court challenges, many without success.
‘‘We have enough to change Pennsylvania,’’ he said.
‘‘The Pennsylvania election was a disaster.’’
Giuliani said there were voting issues in as many as 10 states.
‘‘This was a national plan by Democrats,’’ he said.
Democratic lawyers have fought back against GOP lawsuits ever since the election. They have dismissed the challenges as factfree attacks on what amounted to a fairly routine election process.
The former mayor of New York City called Philadelphia ‘‘a city that is an epicentre of voter fraud’’ and said: ‘‘We have dead people voting,’’ possibly in ‘‘very, very substantial’’ numbers.
However the only examples he cited were from past elections, such as a vote cast in 2018 in the name of boxer Joe Frazier, seven years after his death.
In the suit, the Trump camp would argue that the Pennsylvania process violates federal civil rights law and Pennsylvania law.
Giuliani also said the brief would argue that improper counts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh meant the statewide count violated requirements under the US Constitution for equal protection under the law, an argument he said was advanced by President George W. Bush in the 2000 legal war that won Bush the presidency.
He also said that ‘‘more likely than not’’ the allegations of fraud would reach the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit would repeat a GOP contention that Republican observers had not been given proper access to watch the counting of the votes.
Trump lawyers had as many as 60 witnesses across the state ready to testify to wrongdoing, including an allegation that corrupt election workers had backdated late ballots to make sure they counted, Giuliani said.
The Trump campaign would also bring similar lawsuits in other states, possibly including Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Georgia.
As for Trump, Giuliani said, ‘‘At this point, it would be wrong for him to concede.’’ — TCA