US elections: Trump loses legal battles in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan

Although US President Donald Trump has yet to admit defeat, his administration’s attempt to invalidate Joe Biden’s election victory has gone from bad to worse.

To date, the president’s legal team has not won a single case claiming that voter fraud led to Biden’s victory.

Of the nearly 20 lawsuits filed by his team, the majority have been withdrawn or denounced by judges.

On Friday, the Trump campaign lost six cases in Montgomery County and Philadelphia County in Pennsylvania by questioning the legitimacy of 9,000 absentee ballots.

The campaign was also forced to withdraw a lawsuit in Arizona, which called for a review of the state’s ballots.

A Michigan judge also denied a case brought by two election contenders to block Biden’s victory in Detroit.

Presiding Judge Timothy Kenny not only said that doing so would be an “unprecedented exercise in judicial activism,” but he also denied an audit request.

To add insult to injury, the high-profile law firms representing Donald Trump in the important states of Arizona and Pennsylvania have also withdrawn their cases from court.

Of the legal remedies that have been heard, many have failed due to a lack of evidence or statements from legitimate sworn witnesses.

Presiding over a hearing on alleged electoral mishaps in Arizona, Judge Daniel Kiley refused to accept witness statements that he said were deemed “false and spam” by Trump’s own team, CNN reported.

“Let me clarify,” Judge Kiley told Trump’s campaign attorney. “Your request for witnesses yielded some affidavits that you yourself clearly determined to be false and spam, as you put it.

“The ones you couldn’t prove are fake, did you turn over to court?”

Although Trump’s defiance has dominated American politics, legal experts are generally confident that his attempt to stay in the White House will not be successful.

Speaking to Politico, Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, concluded that “the judges will not decide this election.”

“Neither case would affect enough votes to change one key state, and Trump’s silly legal strategy would have to change three,” he said.

The campaign’s allegations of voter fraud are also unfounded, said Lisa Manheim, a law professor at the University of Washington.

“It is not clear that Trump even understands the basic logic of a lawsuit,” he wrote. “To win a case, you need a claim, evidence, and a remedy.

“Legal claims cannot be based on careless tirades. They cannot be based on unsubstantiated accusations. And they cannot support requests for redress that extend far beyond the scope of the claim.”

Trump will remain president until January 20, when President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in. As it stands, Biden won the election with 290 votes in the electoral college to Trump’s 232.

Currently, Georgia is the only state result that has yet to be officially called due to a manual recount that began Friday.

Trump’s refusal to help the Biden administration’s transition process has also been widely criticized.

On Saturday, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said Trump’s behavior could have “catastrophic” results for the American people.

Kelly called on the government to immediately start briefing Biden’s team, calling it “the right thing to do and the moral.”

“The delay in the transition is a growing national health and security crisis,” he said.

“It costs the current administration nothing to begin reporting to Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris, the new chief of staff, and ALL identified cabinet members and senior staff.”