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WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, told a judge on Tuesday (November 17) in the president’s lawsuit seeking to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from being certified as the victor in Pennsylvania that there was voter fraud. widespread nationally, but offered no evidence in long-term defiance of Trump’s electoral defeat.
Pennsylvania attorneys rejected Giuliani’s fraud allegations and asked US District Judge Matthew Brann in a federal court hearing in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to dismiss Trump’s lawsuit.
A loss in the case would likely doom Trump’s already remote prospects of altering the election outcome.
As the hearing unfolded, Pennsylvania’s highest state court ruled against the Trump campaign in a separate lawsuit that could hamper his case before Brann.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the electoral board in Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, acted reasonably to keep Trump campaign watchers behind barricades and 15 feet (4.5 meters) from polling stations. count, rejecting an appeal from the Trump campaign.
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During the federal court hearing, Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and chief federal prosecutor who has not been a regular member of the court for decades, told Brann that there was “widespread voter fraud across the country.” in the November 3 election, but he did not provide evidence to back up that claim.
Daniel Donovan, attorney for Pennsylvania’s top election official, said the Trump campaign does not allege wrongdoing that would change the outcome in the state. Donovan called the state’s handling of elections during a pandemic a success. Donovan argued that the Trump campaign was asking a federal court to “micromanage” routine differences in county practices.
Giuliani said there was a history of voter fraud in large US cities, adding, without offering evidence, that the expansion of voting by mail in 2020 allowed officials to take advantage of a public health crisis, the coronavirus pandemic. .
Donovan said the alleged Trump campaign injuries are “speculative” and “cannot give them a seat in federal court.”
The Trump campaign on Sunday narrowed the case to focus on a claim that voters in the state were improperly allowed to fix ballots that had been rejected due to technical errors such as the lack of a “secret envelope.”
Pennsylvania officials have said a small number of ballots were fixed. However, the Trump campaign asks Brann to stop the certification of Biden’s victory in the state. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar will certify the election results next Monday, meaning Brann is expected to rule quickly.
READ: Trump backs down by acknowledging that Biden won the election, he concedes ‘nothing’
The Trump campaign said Democratic-leaning counties illegally identified mail-in ballots before Election Day that had flaws so voters could fix or “cure” them. Pennsylvania officials said all counties in the state were allowed to tell residents if their mail-in ballots were deficient, even if they weren’t required to do so.
Biden, who will take office on January 20, is projected to have won the state by more than 70,000 votes, giving him 49.9 percent of the state’s votes versus 48.8 percent for Trump.
Hours before the hearing, Brann allowed Giuliani to appear formally in the case. Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday that Giuliani was leading a new team to pursue the campaign’s legal fight.
Trump, the first US president to lose a re-election bid since 1992, has called the election “rigged,” made unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud and falsely claimed victory. State election officials across the country have said they have found no such fraud.
Biden secured the election by winning Pennsylvania to place it above the 270 electoral votes needed for each state. Biden, a Democrat, won 306 Electoral College votes in total for Trump 232 Republicans, Edison Research said Friday.
Brann at one point paused the hearing due to technical problems with an audio telecast of the proceedings.
The Trump campaign has struggled to hire legal counsel to address its post-election challenges, including the Pennsylvania case. On Monday, three attorneys representing the campaign asked to withdraw from the case, saying the campaign consented to the move but offered few explanations. Brann allowed two of the three to withdraw.
The campaign and Trump supporters have filed lawsuits in several states that legal experts say have little chance of changing the outcome of the election. A senior legal adviser to Biden has dismissed the litigation as “theater, not really lawsuits.”
