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Donald Trump’s legal problems worsened on Friday, as his attempts to overturn the election results in court suffered a series of setbacks.
In Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia court rejected five legal challenges from the Trump campaign and Republicans alleging irregularities in vote-by-mail ballots.
The five separate petitions challenged more than 8,300 votes in Philadelphia, alleging wrongdoing because voters did not print their names under their signature or print their address on the outer envelope of their mail ballots.
The Philadelphia Court of Common Appeals rejected each of the challenges.
President Donald Trump has yet to give in to President-elect Joe Biden
The Philadelphia Court of Common Appeals (pictured) rejected all five cases on Friday.
A law firm representing the Trump campaign in the state announced Friday that it is withdrawing from the case.
Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, based in Ohio, had filed a lawsuit alleging that Pennsylvania’s “two-tier” voting system was illegal.
His expansive case called into question millions of votes cast by Pennsylvanians who voted by mail in accordance with state law.
The firm was facing backlash for its legal work, facing public pressure from the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans working to defeat Trump, for seeking to ‘revoke the will of the American people.’
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, will assume leadership of the legal battles.
His key allies in the fight, David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, both this week tested positive for COVID-19.
Half a dozen other Trump advisers told the New York Times that Giuliani’s efforts were counterproductive and said he was giving the president unwarranted optimism about what could happen.
Those advisers have said they are concerned that Giuliani is damaging not only Trump’s remaining legal options, but also his legacy and future opportunities in politics as he considers another campaign in 2024.
Poll workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, count the votes on November 6.
Ballot counters and observers in North Carolina continued to count absent ballots
More bad news came from Michigan, where a judge denied the Trump campaign’s request to stop ballot scrutiny in Wayne County, which includes Detroit.
In addition to ruling against Trump, Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny called the campaign’s case “not credible.”
‘There were no formal challenges. However, sinister and fraudulent motives were attributed to the process and to the city of Detroit, “Kenny wrote in an opinion published Friday.
“The plaintiff’s interpretation of the facts is incorrect and not credible,” he wrote, the Detroit News reported.
And in Arizona, Trump’s attorneys dropped a lawsuit seeking a manual recount of ballots after a series of networks called for the Joe Biden race.
Biden’s advantage exceeds the number of ballots pending now, and dropping the lawsuit acknowledges that the state will be in Biden’s column.
Finally, amid legal setbacks and defeats, Trump suffered more glaring losses on the electoral map.
Porter Wright Morris & Arthur have withdrawn from their efforts to help the Trump campaign
Television networks called the hotly contested state of Georgia for Democrat Joe Biden on Friday afternoon.
Hours earlier, Arizona was called for Biden. That set up a Biden win that wasn’t particularly close: 306-232 on the Electoral College, with about a 5 million lead in the popular vote. Trump himself had boasted of his own margin, which was also 306-232 in 2016, as a ‘landslide’.
The lawsuits came as Trump continues to raise allegations that the election is “ rigged, ” but has yet to produce evidence of his widespread allegations of voter fraud.
In a stunning statement Thursday, a committee of officials from the Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) debunked claims of widespread voting problems, calling the election ‘the safest in U.S. history’ .
An attorney for Porter Wright Morris & Arthur resigned, in what law.com called a “public relations nightmare.”
The Jones Day firm was also under pressure for its work as an outside consultant, and said in a statement that it was not involved in “any litigation alleging electoral fraud” or seeking to annul the US elections.
Biden’s Pennsylvania lead over Trump approached 60,000 votes, while countries around the world have been congratulating President-elect Biden, even as Trump uses legal maneuvers.
Trump’s campaign adviser, Corey Lewandowski, with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (left), speaks in front of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. The Trump campaign attacked the state’s vote-by-mail system and filed allegations of fraud.
President Trump claimed Pennsylvania ‘easily wins’ due to unsubstantiated fraud allegations
View of the Porter Wright Law Offices in Columbus, Ohio. Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, the law firm that is leading the Trump campaign’s efforts to question the results of the Pennsylvania presidential election, abruptly withdrew from a federal lawsuit it filed days earlier on Trump’s behalf.
Biden took office on Saturday, thanks in part to a victory in Pennsylvania. Trump has refused to budge and has repeatedly claimed, without proof, that there was widespread electoral fraud.
In a court docket Thursday, attorneys for Porter Wright Morris & Arthur said they had agreed that their clients, the campaign and two registered voters, “will receive better service if Porter Wright retires.”
The campaign is in the process of hiring a new attorney, Porter Wright said in the filing before US District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
The lawsuit, filed Sunday in federal court in Pennsylvania, alleges that the state’s vote-by-mail system “lacked all of the transparency and verifiability stamps that were present for in-person voters.”
“We are committed to the court to meet our obligations as necessary to ensure transition to a substitute attorney and not to have a material adverse effect on the client’s interests. We will have no further comment, ” Porter Wright said in a statement.
The Pennsylvania secretary of state and four counties asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit, saying it brought charges “on the basis of repeatedly rejected legal theories and without evidence.”
“This Court should see this lawsuit for what it is: a transparent and premeditated attack on our electoral system that generally seeks to disenfranchise all Pennsylvania voters who legally voted in this election,” they wrote in a document.
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Faced with criticism of his campaign work from some Democrats and The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican group, Porter Wright said Wednesday he has a ‘long history’ of bipartisan election work that ‘asks us to take on controversial cases. . ‘
The Trump campaign has filed a series of lawsuits, part of a broader strategy to try to reverse the election results in key states.
Another firm, Snell & Wilmer, withdrew Tuesday from a lawsuit alleging that Arizona’s Maricopa County incorrectly rejected some votes cast on Election Day Nov. 3.
The firm said it does not comment on client matters.
