Trump campaign’s legal efforts dealt big blow
U.S. Supreme Court rejects Republican bid to halt certification of Joe Biden’s narrow victory in Pennsylvania.
WASHINGTON » President Donald Trump and his allies say their lawsuits aimed at subverting the 2020 election and reversing his loss to Joe Biden would be substantiated, if only judges were allowed to hear the cases.
There is a central flaw in the argument. Judges have heard the cases and have been among the harshest critics of the legal arguments put forth by Trump’s legal team, often dismissing them with scathing language of repudiation.
This has been true whether the judge has been appointed by a Democrat or a Republican, including those named by Trump himself.
The judicial rulings that have rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud have underscored the futility of the president’s brazen attempt to sabotage the people’s will.
Texas AG joins fray
The rebukes have not stopped the litigation. On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, alleging that they violated the Constitution based on a litany of already- dismissed complaints. Paxton asked the U. S. Supreme Court to invalidate their 62 Electoral College votes for Biden — a move that would swing the election to Trump and would be unprecedented in American history.
The high court on Tuesday separately rejected another plea to intervene in the election, from Pennsylvania Republicans who wanted the court to undo the certification of Biden’s victory in the state.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker threw out a lawsuit challenging Michigan’s election results that had been filed two days after the state certified the results for Biden. Parker, appointed by President Barack Obama, said the case embodied the phrase “This ship has sailed.”
Fraud allegations
The lawsuit filed on behalf of a group of voters claimed Biden benefited from fraud, alleging, as in much of the other litigation, a massive Democratrun conspiracy to shift the results. It sought to reverse the certification and impound all voting machines for inspection — “relief that is stunning in its scope and breathtaking in its reach,” the judge said.
“Plaintiffs ask this court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters. This, the court cannot, and will not, do,” she said.
“The people have spoken.”
Rejections pile up
Her ruling stands alongside others in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada that have a common thread: They all rejected Trump’s claims.
Even in the face of these losses in court, Trump has contended that, in fact, he won the election. And he’s moved out of the courts to directly appeal to lawmakers as his losses mount. He brought Michigan lawmakers to the White House in a failed bid to set aside the vote tally, and phoned Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, asking him to order a special legislative session to overturn the states results. Kemp refused. Trump also called Pennsylvania Republican House Speaker Bryan Cutler, who said state law did not give the legislature the power to overturn the will of voters.
And Trump tweeted in all caps, “I WON THE ELECTION, BIG.”
While that is not the case, what is true is that Trump is rapidly running out of legal runway. Out of roughly 50 lawsuits filed, more than 35 have been dropped or dismissed.