Thread by @FoxCahn

#Pennsylvania oral arguments in the Trump Election litigation are beginning! And Rudy Guliani is being asked to confirm his bar membership. Will do a blow-by-blow
#Election2020results

https://twitter.com/FoxCahn/status/1328770734743838722

Judge is warning counsel to take turns speaking and providing other logistical details. Also going over the revisions to the complaint and the remaining counts

Rudy conceded the loss of standing on the Due Process counts, so only proceeding on the equal protection claims. Just started his opening, and out the gate alleging "widespread, nationwide voter fraud." He's citing Jimmy Carter, Rahm Emanuel, etc. to say mail voting is vulnerable

Rudy is sounding like he's doing a live hit on Fox And Friends, not arguing in federal court. He keeps citing every prominent person he can think of who ever mentioned a problem with mail voting. He's citing 2008, 2016, and other elections, but no 2020 evidence whatsoever.

He's now talking about Philadelphia being "well known for voter fraud", citing a string of examples with no connection to the Presidential election.

Rudy is now saying that observers weren't allowed to monitor absentee ballots in Pennsylvania. Let me be clear: This is false. #Rudy is making explicitly false statements to a federal judge. This is a violation of his duty of candor to the court, and he should face ethics charges

Rudy continues to pivot from the unsubstantiated claims about Pennsylvania with wholly unrelated examples of voter frauds from counts in prior elections and prior states.

Rudy jokes that Pennsylvania must have contracted with a wildlife company to get the "cages" they used to pen in election observers. This sort of glib line is completely off point.

Rudy is now claiming that "the democratic parts of the state" were given an opportunity to cure defective ballots, while other voters weren't given the chance to do the same. He then claims that this a textbook example of a "Bush V. Gore" violation. I have no idea what that means

So, he's saying is essence that since GOP officials didn't go as far as dems in helping voters cure ballots, that their rights were violated. As a legal matter, this is absurd.

There's no evidence that GOP voters were targeted, just that more heavily GOP areas with GOP officials were less likely to help cure these defects. It didn't matter what your party affiliation was or who you voted for, it was a variation by local officials.

#Guliani is now meandering into the only question that really matters: standing, whether the Trump campaign has the type of legal injury needed to have their day in federal court. And he's flailing. He's just saying "of course we have standing."

He has yet to directly address standing once. He started to do this and then just started ranting about how far poll watchers were from the ballots. He talks about people being pushed around, adds for no apparent reason "they even pushed women." 🙃

Now #Guliani is claiming that 1.5 million votes were entered illegally. Says "they couldn't count on the fact that all Democrats were crooked." He's going into full-blown conspiracy theory mode. I have rarely felt so embarrassed to be an attorney.

OMG, #Giuliani said "i went to law school" and "I thought it was a simple test" to describe his burden on standing. This is absolutely insane. Standing is on of the single most complicated and cumbersome areas of law. Full stop.

Now #Giuliani is describing their evidence and says "I used to be a clerk, I hope I'm doing this right. In case I need a job." For non-lawyers, this is a profoundly strange thing to say to a judge, really, just baffling.

Also, #Giuliani's saying that he's not sure if he actually knows where the photos he's entering into evidence were actually taken. But no big deal, he's only in open court, so "I may need to correct that later."

And now the line went dead...

In a just world, Rudy would currently be being placed in handcuffs as the judge cites him for contempt of court (add cutaway shot from My Cousin Vinny) but I assume it's just tech issues or they went off the record.

Oh no, looks like it’s just me with the technical difficulties, and when I tried dialing back in, the conference line was full 😢

Good time to note that the federal court holding this hearing put out a statement saying that it was illegal to record or broadcast the arguments. That was questionable to begin with, but if they’re failing to provide adequate call lines it blocks public required public access.