Trump scraps plan to attend Giuliani’s Gettysburg election event

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump scrapped plans to travel to Pennsylvania on Wednesday for a meeting of state Republican lawmakers examining accusations of election impropriety.

Trump’s planned visit to Gettysburg for a hearing by the Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee had not been listed on the president’s public schedule, but people familiar with the matter said he intended to appear alongside Rudy Giuliani, who has been leading a long-shot legal effort in several states to reverse the results of the Nov. 3 election.

No trip was ever put on his public schedule and a group of reporters assembled to cover a trip were told at the last minute that it had been canceled, according to a press pool report Wednesday — indicating Trump wouldn’t be traveling after all.

Giuliani’s efforts have gained little traction — and widespread derision — and the president’s appearance alongside his longtime private lawyer risked further tarnishing his legacy. It wasn’t immediately clear why the president abandoned the travel plan. One Trump adviser, Boris Epshteyn, tweeted Wednesday that he’d tested positive for the coronavirus.

In Pennsylvania, where President-elect Joe Biden leads by more than 80,000 votes, Trump supporters have complained that observers in Philadelphia were not allowed to be closer to workers counting the ballots, but have failed to present evidence of widespread fraud.

Biden transition spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield dismissed the trip to Gettysburg as a stunt.

“The election is over. Virtually everyone on Earth has accepted that truth except for Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani,” she said during a call with reporters on Wednesday. “The Trump campaign has been laughed out of every courtroom with their meritless and baseless lawsuits meant to undermine the will of the American people. This is a sideshow.”

Last weekend, a federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit that Giuliani personally argued after the other attorneys working on the campaign’s lawsuits in the commonwealth asked to be removed from the case.

Trump’s lawyers presented “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” that were not supported by evidence, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote in his opinion dismissing the lawsuit. Giuliani has pledged to appeal.