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US President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani has extensively described to a federal judge in Pennsylvania a vast Democratic conspiracy to steal the US elections.
Giuliani said this justified the invalidation of hundreds of thousands of votes, enough to switch status from President-elect Joe Biden to Trump.
But US District Judge Matthew Brann got right to the heart of the matter, wondering aloud why it would be reasonable to throw away so many valid ballots (Giuliani at one point said 1.5 million would have to leave) based on allegations of that some votes were simply counted incorrectly.
“How can this result be justified?” Judge Brann asked at the end of a six-hour hearing in Williamsport on Tuesday about the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
When Judge Brann pressured Giuliani to explain why none of the specific legal claims in the lawsuit were based on voter fraud, the former New York mayor admitted that the campaign was not alleging election fraud at all. Later, Judge Brann asked whether he should apply a higher legal standard of “strict scrutiny” to the case, which is required when fraud is alleged.
“If we had an alleged fraud, then yes, but this is not a fraud case,” Giuliani said quickly.
Still, Giuliani, chosen by Trump to lead his post-election litigation, argued that the requested “draconian” remedy was justified by the scale of fraud carried out by Democratic election officials in the largest cities of the swing states. , From Philadelphia to Las Vegas.
“Those ballots could have been Mickey Mouse. We have no idea. It has never happened before, ”Giuliani said, despite offering no evidence that ineligible voters cast their votes. “This was a heinous violation, a planned violation.”
The case is in many ways emblematic of the Trump campaign’s legal forays since Election Day: it promises more than court documents show, changes tactics (and in this case lawyers) midway, and repeats arguments that They have failed elsewhere, with Giuliani admitting in a Fox Business News interview Tuesday that he is looking for a vehicle that will take a case to the United States Supreme Court.
‘Fantasy world’
The massive voter fraud allegations have the most traction in the court of public opinion, where they have been fueling Trump’s refusal to admit defeat, delaying Biden’s transition efforts and sparking protests on the streets of Washington.
Mark Aronchick, an attorney for one of the counties named in the lawsuit, said Giuliani’s unsubstantiated claims about a Democratic conspiracy were “disgraceful,” especially in a court of law. The lawyer said Giuilani’s allegations were based on “lots of unverified affidavits” and urged the judge to dismiss a case that “for some reason has become a lifeline for the Trump campaign.”
Giuliani, he added, was “living in a fantasy world.”
“Dismiss this case so we can get down to the real business of this country,” Aronchick urged the judge. “Let’s get this over with”.
Judge Brann ended the hearing without ruling on the state’s request for dismissal. It gave both parties the opportunity to present additional arguments in writing. The motion to dismiss may be moot if the judge accepts the Trump campaign’s request to file a second amended complaint, which is far from certain. Mr. Giuliani said that he would incorporate additional claims into the revised complaint.
While the federal case was ongoing, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Republican election observers had no right to stand at a distance to watch the ballot count, overturning an earlier ruling in favor of Trump that was one of his few courts. . win.
The campaign and other Republicans have based their more outlandish claims of voter fraud on the idea that Republican observers stayed too far away to properly monitor the vote count.
Modified complaint
Demand dropped significantly when the Trump campaign withdrew observer access claims in a surprise amended complaint Sunday, alleging only that Democratic-leaning counties incorrectly allowed voters to correct errors on their mail-in ballots by November 3. , or in some cases alerted. the voters to the problems to be able to vote in person with a provisional ballot.
The campaign claims it is unconstitutional because some Republican-leaning counties did not give voters the same opportunity. The state argues that all counties received the same guidance and that county officials can implement the rules as they see fit.
“What’s wrong with alerting voters by mail that there was a problem with their ballots so they can go to the polls and vote in person? That is a problem? Hardly, ”said Mr. Aronchick.
That’s the scope of the lawsuit’s claims – a far cry, the state says, from the voter fraud conspiracy theories that Giuliani and other Trump allies have been talking about for days.
“There is no claim that a voter cast more than one ballot, that a voter had their ballot unfairly rejected, that someone who did not have the right to vote voted,” and no allegation of “voter fraud,” Daniel Donovan, attorney for the Pennsylvania secretary of state said at the hearing.
“It is a mystery how expanding the right to vote overwhelms someone,” said Judge Brann.
At the end of the hearing, Judge Brann denied a request by a Trump campaign attorney to sanction the law firm representing Pennsylvania in the lawsuit after one of its associates left an unauthorized voicemail that she claimed , it was threatening. Denying attorney Linda Kerns’s request, Judge Brann said the message from a Kirkland and Ellis attorney was “unfortunate” but not threatening, as she claimed.
“I’m very sorry for what happened,” the judge said.
The judge also intervened in the withdrawal of the case by the campaign’s law firm, Porter Wright Morris and Arthur LLP, which had been the target of harassment by the conservative anti-Trump group Lincoln Project on the grounds that the campaign’s lawyers they were trying to subvert democracy. .
“I think it’s regrettable,” Obama-appointed Judge Brann said of Porter Wright’s departure. “He should be able to represent clients without difficulty.” – Bloomberg
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