Because this an argument on Defendant's motion to dismiss, "winning" for Giuliani means not getting the case thrown out of court.
9/
Well, dang. My sound went dead.
I hear something like a swishing sound, but no more voices.
I'll be watching to see how the court rules.
Usually it's pretty easy to survive a motion to dismiss . . .
10/
You just need a reason to go to trial (or a hearing). I heard nothing in Giuliani's rambling that would rise to that level, but I suppose a court would need to see what is in the affidavits.
I mean, there COULD be something there 🙄
11/
If, say, the judge says, "Even if everything in these affidavits is true, there'd be no grounds to stop the state from certifying the election," he'd toss out the case because what would be the point?
Giuliani really wants to put mail-in balloting on trial.
12/
Okay, so what would be the remedy, even if these errors were made?
Trump wants to stop PA from certifying their results.
Giuliani is arguing that the entire election was tainted.
PA can't hold a new election. The date is set by Congress.
13/
Oh, I see. It's the elector argument. This doesn't work because the Electoral Count act controls: If the executive (governor) and legislature send different slates of electors, the executive branch counts.
Plus . . .
14/
The legislature would have to abide by the laws in place before the election. They can't substitute their own judgement. I wrote about that in my Washington Post piece: washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/0…
Also PA isn't enough electoral votes.
The whole thing is Strong Man Fantasy.
15/
I went off topic with the talk about electors.
The problem here was remedy. Team Trump argues that the election was tainted because some counties took steps to allow voters to cure their ballots, but others didn't.
. . . is to throw out all the mail-in ballots. Why? because they found two voters in counties who were not contacted and offered a chance to cure their ballots, so they say the law wasn't equally applied.
The remedy is to try to get the un-cured ballots cured.
17
Instead, they wanted to throw out millions of legal ballots.
I'd like to say it's the stupidest legal argument I've heard, but I spent dozens of hours listening to the House Managers argue the impeachment case, and their arguments were dumber.
This gets second place.🏆🏆
18/
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The thing to notice from Tweets like these (@marcorubio and @LindseyGrahamSC) is that it's now a badge of honor for members of the Trump-Fox-GOP to be criticized by the media and the left.
Similarly, convictions are a badge of honor: Flynn and others are given a hero's welcome.
Not at all. It looks to me like the ultimate defiance. They actually rejoice in their defiance.
They consider themselves heroes for bucking rules and norms and laws.
Convictions and criticism (for them) enhance their status as victims.
Hungarian scholar Balint Magyar offers a theory that explains why the US is holding out against the same tactics that caused other countries to collapse into autocracy.
His theory also explains why comparisons across nations doesn't always work. @juliaioffe 1/
Another Republican attempt to prevent ballots from being counted loses in court.
(The ballots were received on time, but the voter failed to write the date. No allegations of fraud. Just a simple mistake. GOP wanted the votes not to count)
As it turns out, I have some experience in Nevada. I spent two elections as a volunteer lawyer for the NV Dems, so I have some familiarity with NV voting.)
The first problem is that there is nothing to back up the claims of fraud . . .
The second problem is that the proposed remedy is to either declare Trump the winner (which makes no sense) or completely disenfranchise every voter in Nevada in the presidential election.
Raffensperger deserves credit for refusing to bow to pressure, and for coming forward with this. According to other reporting he and his wife have received death threats since his refusal to lie for Trump.
What we've seen for 4 years its that a number of Republicans refuse to go along. Think of all those people who marched in to testify in the impeachment hearings.
Had Raffensperger gone along, the outcome wouldn't change because a case needs evidence. . .
Had Raffensperger bowed to pressure, we'd have a Pennsylvania situation where the GOP bring cases claiming fraud, but without evidence, eventually the cases dissolve.
It's stunning that people like Graham don't even PRETEND anymore to care about free and fair elections.