US Elections: Legal Experts Call Trump’s Latest Lawsuit The ‘Dumbest’ They Have Ever Seen

Legal experts have torn apart a bold new lawsuit challenging the results of the US presidential elections in four swing states, calling it the “craziest” and “dumbest” case of the entire post-election period.

Today, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, announced his intention to sue Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the United States Supreme Court.

Joe Biden won all four states, and so far President Donald Trump’s attempts to challenge those results in state and federal courts have gone nowhere.

So Paxton is trying something radically different.

The Supreme Court is usually an appellate court, which means that the only way for a case to end earlier is if it is appealed first through the lower courts.

There is an exception to that rule. The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over legal disputes between states, that is, the American equivalent of New South Wales suing Victoria. These cases begin at the level of the Supreme Court.

However, the court is not required to hear them. So the first step here is for Texas to request permission to file a complaint, in essence, to convince the majority of the nine justices that they should in fact take the time to hear your claim.

That’s what Paxton has done today.

Ultimately, he wants the Supreme Court to order each state to ignore its popular vote and elect its constituents through the state legislature.

By the way, all four state legislatures are controlled by the Republican Party.

All of this comes after the US Supreme Court today rejected another request from President Trump’s Republican allies to annul Pennsylvania’s election results.

In his presentation, Paxton argues that the states in question “exploited the Covid-19 pandemic” to enact “last minute changes” to their electoral rules, “skewing” the outcome of the elections.

The full motion, which you can read here, contains many of the same allegations that have already been rejected by state and federal courts across the country.

It also includes some pretty striking self-statements.

For example, Paxton argues that the probability that President-elect Joe Biden could have won the popular vote in the four accused states, given Trump’s head start in them “at 3 am on November 4,” was ” less than one in a quadrillion., or 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 “.

Quote “expert analysis using a commonly accepted statistical test.”

As explained in some detail before, Trump jumped to the forefront in the states Paxton is referring to because it took longer to count votes in heavily Democratic areas, which were more populated and much more likely to have large numbers. of emails. votes.

The Trump campaign says that Biden’s returns in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were due to widespread fraud.

He has yet to convince a single judge that there is actually some evidence to back up that claim, resulting in dozens of court defeats and a series of withering sentences.

This one, written by a conservative judge appointed by Trump himself, is fairly representative of the whole.

Paxton issued a statement to explain his presentation today, saying that “confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is sacrosanct.”

“Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 elections,” he said.

“The states violated the statutes promulgated by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution.

“By ignoring state and federal laws, these states have tainted not only the integrity of the vote of their own citizens, but also of Texas and all other states that held legal elections.

“His breach of the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt on the outcome of the entire election. We now ask that the Supreme Court intervene to correct his egregious mistake.”

‘Absolute garbage’

Fighting the words, no doubt, but they didn’t impress the legal experts, who expressed serious doubts that the court would even agree to hear Paxton’s case.

Professor Rick Hasen, an electoral law expert at the University of California, said Paxton’s lawsuit may have replaced the one filed by Congressman Mike Kelly in Pennsylvania as “the dumbest case I have ever seen filed in emergency court. Supreme “.

“This is a press release posing as a lawsuit,” Hasen said.

“Texas does not have standing to raise these claims as it has no say in how other states choose voters; it could raise these issues in other cases and does not need to go directly to the Supreme Court; it waited too late to sue; the remedy it suggests Texas to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters after the fact is unconstitutional; there is no reason to believe that voting in either state was conducted unconstitutionally; it is too late for the Supreme Court to grant a remedy even if the claims were meritorious (they are not).

“What absolute garbage. Dangerous garbage, but garbage.”

He noted that Texas Attorney General Kyle Hawkins, whose job it is to oversee and conduct state litigation in the Supreme Court, had not put his name on the lawsuit, assuming Hawkins “surely would not sign this garbage.”

CBS News election law expert David Becker backed that assessment.

“Calling this garbage could be generous,” he said.

“We should try to contemplate how a party that really respects federalism and the rights of the states could support such a claim, or senators and a president who seek to interfere in the electoral processes of other states.”

‘Indefensible nonsense’

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, dismissed the lawsuit as a “dangerous, offensive and wasteful” move. He also described Paxton’s presentation as, and I quote, “insane.”

“It appears we have a new leader in the category of ‘craziest lawsuit filed to allegedly challenge the election,'” said Professor Vladeck.

“As others have noted, it is more than revealing that Kyle Hawkins, the attorney general representing the state to Scotus, is not at the filings. I am glad he refused to associate himself with this utter, indefensible nonsense.”

Vladeck stressed that Paxton needs five judges to vote in favor of granting Texas permission to present, saying “it’s not going to happen.”

Furthermore, he said, the case has been filed so late that by the time the court makes a decision on the matter, it will no longer be relevant.

“Texas requested permission to file another new lawsuit, against California, in February, and the court has not yet acted on its motion for permission to file,” he said.

“Yes, Scotus can hear this case. And one or two judges may think he should. But it will take forever to decide whether to hear him, which almost certainly means everything will be moot before it happens.”

‘The craziest case of all’

Prominent Texas appeals attorney Raffi Melkonian kept his assessment brief.

“The new Paxton lawsuit isn’t worth a lot of your time, but I mean, it doesn’t make any sense and it’s bad and has no chance of success. I just want to be clear on that,” Melkonian said.

Finally, Eugene Mazo of the Louis D Brandeis School of Law told Law & Crime that Paxton’s lawsuit was the “craziest case” of the post-election period.

“This is the dumbest case any lawyer has ever seen and the Supreme Court will not touch it. Really, this is the craziest case of all. Unbelievable,” said Professor Mazo.

“It is simply amazing for any normal, sane person who understands the structure of our constitutional system and how it works.”