One more legal defeat for Trump

MADISON, Wis. — President Trump lost a federal lawsuit Saturday while his legal team argued a separate case before a skeptical Wisconsin Supreme Court in lawsuit that liberal justices said “smacks of racism” and would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in the state’s most diverse counties.

U. S. District Judge Brett Ludwig, a Trump appointee, dismissed Trump’s federal lawsuit asking the court to order the Republicancontrolled Legislature to name Trump the winner over Democrat Joe Biden. The judge said Trump’s arguments “fail as a matter of law and fact.”

The ruling came as Trump attorney Jim Troupis faced a barrage of questions about his claims in the second Wisconsin case from both liberal and conservative justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Troupis asked the court to toss more than 221,000 absentee ballots, including his own, saying they were cast fraudulently based on incorrect interpretations of the law by elections officials.

“What you want is for us to overturn this election so that your king can stay in power,” said liberal Justice Jill Karofsky. “That is so unAmerican.”

Conservative justices appeared to be sympathetic to some issues raised by Trump, but also questioned how they could fairly disqualify ballots only in the two counties where Trump sought a recount and not other counties where the same procedures were followed.

Biden attorney John Devaney said tossing any ballots in just those two counties would be a violation of the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Trump is challenging ballots only in Milwaukee and Dane counties, the state’s most liberal counties with the largest nonwhite populations. He is not challenging any votes in more conservative counties where he won.

“This lawsuit, Mr. Troupis, smacks of racism,“Karofsky said. “I do not know how you can come before this court and possibly ask for a remedy that is unheard of in U. S. history. … It is not normal.”

Trump and his allies have suffered dozens of defeats in Wisconsin and across the country in lawsuits that rely on unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud and election abuse. On Friday, the U. S. Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit that sought to invalidate Biden’s win by throwing out millions of votes in four battleground states, including Wisconsin.