[ad_1]
Rudy Giuliani, representing a client inside a courtroom for the first time in nearly three decades, showed some rust as he tried to argue that President Donald Trump has been robbed of re-election.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for President Donald Trump, at a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Source: Associated Press
The former federal prosecutor and mayor of New York City, who has taken over Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, entered court today in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, with a few dozen Trump supporters cheering him from the other side of the street.
For the next several hours, he fiddled with his Twitter account, forgot which judge he was talking to, and launched wild and unsubstantiated accusations about a national conspiracy by Democrats to steal the election.
No such evidence has emerged since Election Day.
Giuliani goaded an opposing lawyer, calling him “the man who was very angry with me, I forgot his name.”
He mistook the judge for a federal judge in a separate Pennsylvania district who rejected a separate Trump campaign case: “They accused me of not reading their opinion and not understanding it.”
And he stumbled upon the meaning of “opacity.”
“In the plaintiffs’ counties, they were denied the opportunity to have unhindered observation and ensure opacity,” Giuliani said.
“I’m not quite sure I know what opacity means. It probably means you can see, right?”
“It means he can’t,” said US District Judge Matthew Brann.
“Great words, your honor,” Giuliani said.
Giuliani acknowledged in court that part of the lawsuit had been eliminated “by mistake” and, when questioned by Brann, the lawsuit did not actually allege electoral fraud, despite his claims to that effect.
Sometimes Giuliani struggled to answer Brann’s questions, or the Philadelphia attorney who worked alongside Giuliani, Linda Kerns, took it upon themselves to answer.
At one point, an opposition attorney, Mark Aronchick, refuted Giuliani’s repeated claims that it was illegal for counties to help people vote.
“I don’t expect him to know the Pennsylvania electoral code,” Aronchick said, suggesting, without saying so, that Giuliani was an unsuspecting outsider.
And while he was still in court, he retweeted someone who said he did a great job in his opening remarks.
The Trump campaign seeks to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its election.
The lawsuit is based on a complaint that Philadelphia and six Democratic-controlled counties in Pennsylvania allowed voters to make corrections to mail-in ballots that would otherwise be disqualified on a technicality, such as the lack of a secret envelope or signature. .
It is not clear how many ballots it could involve, although some opposition lawyers say it is too little to overturn the election result. President-elect Joe Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes.
Yesterday opposition lawyers asked Brann to dismiss the case, calling the cited evidence “miscellaneous irregularities at best” that would not justify undoing Pennsylvania’s election results, which handed the White House over to Biden.
Once a tough federal prosecutor who made a name for himself by going after New York mobsters in the 1980s, Giuliani had not appeared in court as an attorney since 1992, according to court records.
Giuliani was the U.S. attorney in charge of the prominent Southern District of New York before winning his second mayoral race in New York City in 1993.
He remained mayor during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but his term was limited and he left office in early 2002.
He ran for president in 2008.
Long in Trump’s orbit, Giuliani became a fierce attack dog in the 2016 Trump campaign, lending his celebrity to the effort of the underdog and earning Trump’s gratitude.
He emerged as a major player when the president made him the public face of his legal team during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia.
Giuliani then blamed others close to Trump for presenting unproven conspiracy theories in front of the president about the work that Biden’s son Hunter did in Ukraine. Trump was indicted after pressuring Kiev to investigate the Bidens.
Giuliani came out into the open again in the final stretch of this election, but he has little to show for the legal efforts of the Trump campaign.
Your playlist will load after this ad.
After another rant on Twitter, President Trump took the course in Sterling, Virginia. Source: Associated Press
And it became a joke when he gave a press conference in front of a Philadelphia landscaping company, in front of an adult bookstore, when the race was called for Biden.
In Williamsport, a small town better known as the home of the Little League World Series, Giuliani’s arrival and departure from court was facilitated by law enforcement and court personnel, who allowed his two black SUVs to remain parked. directly in front of the building.
When he left court Tuesday night, Giuliani, 76, seemed unconcerned as to whether he would lose that case – “well, obviously if we lose it, we’ll appeal it” – and suggested that the Trump campaign’s eggs are not in the works. a basket. .
“I am afraid there are eight cases,” Giuliani said.
