Thread by @alanfeuer

New:
It's official.
Rudy has been approved to appear in the Pennsylvania election case.

If all goes according to schedule, we're moments from beginning the hearing in Donald J. Trump for President v. Boockvar (the PA secretary of state).

A quick cast of characters:
The judge is Matthew Brann, who was appointed by President Obama in 2012. Before taking the bench Judge Brann was a lawyer in private practice and, interestingly, a Republican party official in Pennsylvania.

Appearing for the Trump campaign are Marc Scaringi, one of his associates Brian Caffrey and...Rudy Giuliani.

The defendants include SoS Kathy Boockvar and seven Penn counties accused by the Trump campaign of unequally (mis)handling the management of the absentee and mail-in ballots. Some of the defendants share lawyers (and there are many of them.)

Outside parties have also intervened in the case perhaps most prominently the Democratic National Committee which has stepped into many similar suits around the country. The DNC (or the local state Dem party) has been repped in these cases by Marc Elias' team from Perkins Coie.

As we wait, my colleagues @maggieNYT and @nytmike have just dropped this story about Rudy Giuliani.
He is said to have asked the Trump campaign for $20K a day for legal work.
He denies it.
nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/…

We're live in Williamsport.
3,999 people are currently listening in. (Wow.)

Rudy asks to be admitted pro hac vice.
Judge Brann asks him if he's a member of the bar in NYC and at least federal court.
He says he is.
"You're good to go," judge says.

The many (many) lawyers are giving making their appearances for Judge Brann.

Daniel Donovan, a lawyer for SoS Boockvar, says he's going to take the lead for the defendants. Others may chime in.

Brann notes that the plaintiff's amendment complaint has removed several counts.
What remains is: an equal protection claim and one regarding the violation of the electors & elections clause.

The latter claim, Judge Brann says, has essentially been barred by a standing issue raised by 3rd circuit recently.

Rudy is about to do his opening.

Rudy says the best description of this situation is that it's a "widespread nationwide voter fraud." It's not an isolated case, he says, but has been repeated in 10 other jurisdiction.

He's saying the use of mail-in ballots are the problem, quoting a report done years ago done by...Jimmy Carter.
"Mail in balloting is exceedingly dangerous," he says.

Now he's bringing up Mayor Daley fixing elections in Chicago in the 60's.
It's a potpourri of fraud claims not related to this case.
"This practice of holding up votes...is a time-honored practice," he says, especially in big cities.

Here in PA, in Philly and Alleghany Counties, the same thing has happened again, he says. Both counties, Rudy notes, are Democratic strongholds. He could "go on and on," he says, about voting fraud problems in these areas.

This is why so much emphasis has been put on the inspection process, he says, which now becomes paramount given that mail-in balloting--prone to fraud--has become so prevalent this year.

Rudy is giving a generalized attack on Democratic cities being prone to voter fraud.
Still waiting on any specific relevance to this case.

Now he turns to actual plaintiffs.
One, David Henry, he says, voted absentee in Lancaster Co. but failed to put his ballot into a "secrecy envelope."
Quite properly, Rudy says, Mr. Henry's ballot was rejected.
But in Dem counties, voters were told about such problems in advance.

Hundreds of thousands of people, he says, in Dem parts of state may gotten similar warnings. (Suggesting that those who made mistakes in other parts of state were not given the same warning.)
He says that's a "classic violation of equal protection."

Now Rudy is bringing up the situation in Clark County NV, suggesting that the same thing is happening there.
"This is happening all of these places," he says, adding that he's going to file more lawsuits around the country in this vein.

He's saying 700,000 absentee or mail-in ballots may be tainted.
These ballots also received no scrutiny, he's saying, from GOP poll challengers.
It's still openings, but he has yet to offer evidence for his claims.

Rudy's argument in short:
There have been past instances of fraud in Philadelphia ergo there was fraud in this election.
"This doesn't happen in an honest place," he says.

"This is a case. There is a controversy. I went to law school," Rudy Giuliani on why the Trump campaign and his two individual plaintiffs have standing in this lawsuit.

He's entering exhibits now:
He names Ex A) and B) as photos of people in the counting room in Philly about 30 feet from the vote counting process. (Too far, he says.)
C) is a photo of a woman in Pittsburgh, he says, using binoculars to see the process.
D) is also Alleghany Cty

He's wrapping up.

Up next is Daniel Donovan for the defense.

Donovan says the Nov 23 deadline to certify PA's election is fast approaching.

He notes that Rudy focused a lot on allegations that were cut out of the amended complaint over the weekend.

Donovan says here's what not in the complaint:
*No claim that any voters voted more than once.
*Or that someone not eligible to vote did vote
*And no claim of voter fraud.

He says that a very limited number of voters are said to have had their votes counted when they should not have been.
And the relief the Trump campaign seeks is to invalidate the entire vote in Pennsylvania.

Donovan starts by saying the plaintiffs lack standing in regards to an equal protection claim.

The two plaintiffs weren't DENIED the vote, Donovan says.
Their home counties didn't count their votes b/c they filed them wrongly.
And yet, Donovan says, the plaintiffs haven't sued their own counties but have sued to stop counting votes in OTHER counties.

Reminder: the 2 plaintiffs--other than the Trump campaign--are David Henry & Lawrence Roberts.
They claim they sent in flawed mail-in ballots that weren't counted by their counties & it's not fair that Philly & Alleghany counties let voters fix their flawed mail-ins.

We seem to have lost the audio.
Hopefully it's a temporary glitch.

An update:

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1328789130025840648

The federal hearing in Pennsylvania has resumed.
Daniel Donovan, a lawyer for the PA secretary of state, is rebutting Rudy Giuliani's opening statement.

Donovan sums up: Plaintiffs have no standing, no federal equal protection claim and Rudy spent a lot of time discussing claims that were deleted from the amended complaint.

Now up Mark Aronchick speaking for defendant counties.
He cites a PA Supreme Court ruling from *today* that decisively said Philly election officials properly handled where observers were placed.
That ruling, he says, wipes out most of Rudy's argument.

https://twitter.com/alanfeuer/status/1328799359400628225

Aronchick says Rudy probably hasn't read and clearly does not understand a case he cited in his opening statement.
A case, he says, which is anyhow now irrelevant because of the PA Supreme Court's decision earlier today.

He is chiding Rudy for going on about things that happened in *1960* as evidence that fraud took place today.

(Aronchick's audio feed is not very good...)

Aronchick is ripping into Giuliani, saying it's "disgraceful" that he attacked Democratic cities as fraud prone.

He's asking what is wrong with a county alerting its voters that they've made a mistake on their ballot and telling them they can fix it?
"That is a problem?" he asks. "Hardly."

Aronchick says he feels bad for the plaintiffs, Henry and Roberts, that their own counties didn't tell them they had filed faulty ballots in order to fix them.

He is incredulous that Giuliani is asking Judge Brann to invalidate hundreds of thousands of votes based on these arguments and this low level of evidence.
"It is disgraceful that you are being asked to do that," he says actually sounding angry and adding, "Whatever..."

Aronchick's *implicit* argument here is that Dem counties prepared better for voting during COVID by encouraging mail-in ballots & making an effort to ensure that all ballots were filed correctly.
The problem, he suggests, is that the plaintiffs' GOP counties did not do the same.

(COVID court nugget: The judge encourages Aronchick not to move around so much as he's speaking in order to improve the quality of his audio.
"Don't move--just your lips," Judge Brann says.)

We're headed into a 10-minute recess.

And we're back in Williamsport.

Uzoma Nkwonta, a lawyer for the DNC, is now speaking.
He notes that, beyond all the legal arguments that have been offered so far, the Trump campaign hasn't offered any proof that their case would change the results of the election even if it's successful.

Nkwonta reminds the judge that other Trump campaign lawyers--in PA and in AZ, for example--have explicitly said they were NOT alleging fraud in their cases, including Linda Kerns who is IN THE COURTROOM at present.

Nkwonta, a lawyer for the DNC, suggests that Giuliani's very loud claims that there has been "widespread nationwide fraud" in the election are at odds with the campaign's other lawyers who have not claimed fraud occurred--including one lawyer sitting at the table with him.

David Zionts, who's repping some individual PA voters, reminds Judge Brann that no one here is talking about illegal votes.
Just the opposite: they're talking about votes that were fixed to comply with the law....

Zionts reps a woman named Natalie Price, he says, who struggled hard to fix her mail in ballot so that it complied with the law.
"To call that fraud?" he asked. To call that illegal? That's insulting."

Judge Brann is asking questions now.

He tells Trump attorney Linda Kerns that she has two individual clients who are alleging their votes weren't counted and yet she's trying to invalidate ALL the votes in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Can you tell me how this result could possibly be justified?" he asks.

Rudy takes the question.
(We just missed a lot of his answer due to audio problems.)

He's now saying he's NOT asking for the entire election to be reversed. But doesn't quite say what is asking for then.

Rudy is repeating his unfounded claim that problems happened simultaneously in Philly, Detroit, Milwaukee and other Dem cities--namely that observers weren't allowed to scrutinize mail in ballots.
One problem here: The claim about observers has been REMOVED from the complaint.

Judge is asking Rudy how he can allege fraud when the complaint doesn't mention fraud...

Why, the judge asks, does the campaign have standing when the individual plaintiffs are able to press their case on their own?

BREAKING: Rudy Giuliani, who has been saying there is massive fraud in the election for weeks, just said in a Pennsylvania federal courtroom: "This is not a fraud case."

Rudy had started this hearing by alleging "widespread nationwide fraud" in the elections in at least 10 states.
But...when Judge Brann asked him if he should apply the strict scrutiny that a fraud case requires, Rudy acknowledged that this case is not alleging fraud.

Judge Brann is saying he's going to give the Trump campaign a chance to file a brief in opposition to the defendant's latest motion to dismiss AND a new motion for preliminary injunction by 5 pm tomorrow.
Defendants have until 5 pm Thursday to file replies.

Rudy is now saying he wants to file a second amended complaint too.

Judge Brann is now addressing Trump campaign attorney Linda Kerns' allegation that an associate at Kirkland Ellis, which reps the defendants, left her a harassing voicemail.
He says it's "not a sanctionable matter" but "it's bad form."
And someone should chat with the lawyer.