Thread by @bradheath

President Trump's lawyers have filed their Third Circuit brief. They're asking the court to reverse the district court's decision that they could not amend their complaint a second time.

Trump's lawyers want to make clear that they're not "seeking to disenfranchise 6.8 million voters." They're seeking to disenfranchise some subset of 1.5 million voters who cast absentee ballots in some counties.

(Though their lawsuit literally asked that the court prevent the state from certifying the results of the election.)

Trump's lawyers say the only issues they want the Third Circuit to resolve are whether they should have been able to amend their complaint to reinstate claims they dropped by mistake, and whether they can revive a related injunction motion.

Trump's lawyers want to be able to go back to the district court so they can argue that a bunch of election procedures they didn't like - curing of mail-in ballots, canvassing observation, etc - were part of a deliberate scheme to help Joe Biden become president.

Trump's lawyers say PA's "guidance" that counties count absentee ballots without the required secrecy envelopes was part of a scheme to favor Biden, nevermind that the state Supreme Court said they shouldn't be counted and it appears they therefore weren't.

Trump's lawyers go through a lot of stuff that's in their proposed amended complaint, including an allegation that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision rejecting their state-law claim on poll watchers actually just shows how unconstitutional everything is.

Trump's lawyers argue that their next complaint will go much better because rather than alleging garden variety election irregularities, it alleges that those irregularities were actually part of a scheme by Democrats and elected officials to unlawfully favor Biden.

Trump's lawyers say the want to prohibit Pennsylvania from certifying its election results, or if that can't happen, they'd like a court order declaring the election "defective" and that the state legislature should decide who gets its electors.

(This is from the same filing in which the campaign said it wasn't trying to disenfranchise 6.8 million voters, so ..... )

But all that is sort of beside the point because, as Trump's lawyers make clear, the *only* issue they're raising is whether Judge Brann abused his discretion by denying them leave to amend.

Trump's lawyers make clear that a lot of what the current appeal is about is letting them fix a mistake they made in the district court by omitting some of the claims they hoped to litigate when they filed their amended complaint.

There's not a lot of argument here about why Judge Brann should be reversed. Basically, Trump's lawyers say they didn't wait too long to amend and letting them do it wouldn't have prejudiced the defendants.

Trump's lawyers cite a case saying that if a complaint is dismissed for lack of specificity, the court should let the plaintiff fix it.

But, uhh, that wasn't the reason Trump's case was dismissed.

And that was a case litigated pro se by an inmate, not by the President.

Trump's lawyers say they should get to review 1.5 million mail-in ballots, see how many it thinks are defective and deduct that number from Joe Biden's total.

That's .... bold.

Trump's lawyers also filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order that would "stay the effect" of Pennsylvania impending certifying its election results. That's not a thing, but it's probably close enough.

To be clear, Trump's lawyers aren't asking the Third Cir. to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its election results. They're asking for "an injunction staying the legal effect of certification."

I guess we'll see whether they explain what, if anything, t hat actually means.

(They also cite the wrong rule, but again, little stuff.)

Using the wrong rule as one of your headings is arguably somewhat less good.

The campaign seems to be basing its motion for an injunction on a complaint it hasn't even filed yet, much of which was already tossed by a district judge for reasons they're expressly not challenging on appeal. That's ... unusual.

Here Trump's lawyers argue they shouldn't have to prove absentee votes were counted illegally, which they seem to concede they can't do. Instead, they say the state should have to prove that all the votes were legal.

.@rickhasen has a good explanation of why the relief the Trump campaign is seeking in its Third Cir. TRO (which, again, isn't a thing) doesn't make a ton of sense ->

https://twitter.com/rickhasen/status/1330993382366146561