The hearing for the Trump campaign's federal lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania has begun.
Rudy Giuliani is present and introduces himself.
Judge Matthew Brann presiding. Daniel Donovan of Kirkland & Ellis will be making the main argument for the defense.
Starts with discussion on the changing versions of the Trump campaign's complaint. The remaining claim that will be discussed today will be about equal protection
Rudy begins by saying there is "widespread, nationwide voter fraud of which this is a part."
He quotes Rahm Emanuel's years-old quote about never letting a crisis go to waste. Says the pandemic was used as cover to expand mail-in voting.
Rudy tells the court there has been a "time-honored practice" of "holding back votes" in the "corrupt big cities," and mail votes have given people "a wonderful opportunity to hold back votes, even to produce votes after the election"
Rudy asserts a nationwide conspiracy in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Atlanta to shut out Republican observers. “This is not an accident. You’d have to be a fool to think this is an accident.”
After a pause in the hearing due to technical difficulties, we've now gotten started again. Back to Daniel Donovan, lawyer arguing for the state of PA, against the Trump campaign's claim.
Donovan wraps up by saying they don't have standing, they don't have an equal protection claim, that Giuliani's examples were deleted from the amended complaint, and that the suit should be dismissed today.
Mark Aronchick, lawyer arguing for Allegheny County, is getting very animated rebutting Giuliani.
Says he doesn't think Giuliani "has even read" an opinion he cited "or even understands it."
Aronchick: “There is no case that they have cited, there is no case that we can find,” where local efforts to make voting *easier* “is an equal protection violation.”
Says Trump campaign's arguments are turning the equal protection clause "upside down."
Aronchick says Giuliani is bringing up all sorts of irrelevant matters — happenings in Clark County, NV, and something else "that happened in 1960."
Also calls it disgraceful that Rudy was “comparing election workers, people who run our elections, our patriots, to the mafia"
Judge Brann begins his questions. Says Trump team is alleging two individuals were denied right to vote in violation of equal protection clause. But they're asking him to invalidate all PA's votes.
"Can you tell me how this result can possibly be justified?”
Giuliani responds with incoherent, free-form rambling on a variety of topics. Finally another lawyer on Trump's side jumps in and tries to refocus attention on their legal claim, urging the judge not to dismiss the case but rather move ahead to an evidentiary hearing.
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Last week, two longtime Michigan Republicans sounded the alarm about "the very real prospect the Republicans who control the Senate and House in Lansing might nullify the clear and decisive victory achieved by Joe Biden in Michigan"
This appears to be the Twitter account for one of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers Republican members who voted not to certify. A Gateway Pundit fan who has RTed a Trump tweet claiming mail ballot fraud twitter.com/HartmannDude/w…
There are two things that are set to happen with the election results in the coming weeks that ordinarily would be formalities, but in a disputed election are crucial.
First is the states' certifications of their results. Second is the selection of electors.
Right now, both processes are clearly on track to make Biden the next president.
Trump's only hope is to upset the apple cart on one or both. Blocking or delaying certifications somehow, or getting partisan GOP state legislators in states Biden won to appoint Trump electors.
An interesting passage explaining why Mueller didn't charge Roger Stone or WikiLeaks with conspiracy regarding the hacked emails. Let's go through it...
First, the report confirms Mueller considered charging WikiLeaks, Assange, or Stone as "conspirators in the computer-intrusion conspiracy," under the theory that they were "late joiners" to the Russian intelligence officers' hacking plot.
But not sufficient "admissible evidence" that WikiLeaks knew of hackings before they happened, or made an agreement about it.
"A “fence” who had no advance knowledge of the plan to steal the goods he disposes of... is generally not liable for conspiring to steal those goods"
Just spoke to Diana Solorio from the Maricopa County, AZ recorder’s office.
She says over 1.3 million early ballots have been returned and processed. That’s about half the number of total registered voters in Maricopa County (about 2.6M).
Each returned ballot must be signature verified by two separate people. That's already happened for these 1.3 million ballots.
(This is the time-consuming mail ballot processing that WI, PA, and MI haven't started yet, bc Republican legislators wouldn't allow an early start)
Due to a 2019 law change, Arizona's ballot processing now begins 14 days before the election — previously, it could only begin 7 days before.
This extra time will be a big help in dealing with a record number of mail ballots
It's kind of odd that Republican-controlled Nebraska never bothered to fix this "hey, some years we might randomly throw an electoral vote to the Democrat" situation.
After Obama won NE-2 in 2008 they did redistrict the state to make that less likely. But they didn't ditch the weird congressional district electoral vote system entirely, and now it's rearing its head again.
Apparently a bill to move Nebraska's electoral votes back to winner-take-all failed in 2016... by a single vote, because it was filibustered
Harry Reid changed Senate rules for non-Supreme Court nominations in 2013. Mitch McConnell changed Senate rules for Supreme Court nominations in 2017. This really isn't complicated, but some people really enjoy misleading their followers.
My goodness. If you change the rules because you are mad at Harry Reid for making a different rules change four years ago... you're still changing the rules!