Rudy Giuliani tries to overturn US election results in federal court

Rudy Giuliani returned to federal court for the first time since 1992 to argue for his client Donald Trump Tuesday, as the president ran out of lawyers and legal options, and was left using the former mayor as his frontman.

But the hearing was far from smooth or convincing, with Giuliani stumbling over the law and the facts, calling his opponent ‘that man who was angry at me’ and needing the meaning of ‘opacity’ explained to him by the judge.

‘In the plaintiffs’ counties, they were denied the opportunity to have an unobstructed observation and ensure opacity,’ Giuliani said. ‘I’m not quite sure I know what opacity means. It probably means you can see, right?’

‘It means you can’t,’ said U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, PA.

‘Big words, your honor,’ Giuliani, 76, said.

The case is one of Trump’s few remaining opportunities to stop hundreds of thousands of votes in Pennsylvania counting towards the election result, offering him the beginning of a legal path which could overturn the election result.

The Trump campaign is seeking to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its election. 

The lawsuit is based on a complaint that Philadelphia and six Democratic-controlled counties in Pennsylvania let voters make corrections to mail-in ballots that were otherwise going to be disqualified for a technicality, like lacking a secrecy envelope or a signature.

Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani (second right) appeared in person in federal court in Pennsylvania to argue a case – only to have the state Supreme Court overturn a lower court win for Team Trump

Legal chief: Rudy Giuliani - seen at the infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference on the day the election was called for Trump  - had to appear in court for the president as he runs out of lawyers

Legal chief: Rudy Giuliani – seen at the infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference on the day the election was called for Trump  – had to appear in court for the president as he runs out of lawyers

'The man who was very angry with me, I forgot his name.': Mark Aronchick, who appeared for the Pennsylvania counties including Allegheny and Philadelphia, mocked Giuliani and later told MSNBC: 'You can say what you like at Four Seasons Total Landscaping'

‘The man who was very angry with me, I forgot his name.’: Mark Aronchick, who appeared for the Pennsylvania counties including Allegheny and Philadelphia, mocked Giuliani and later told MSNBC: ‘You can say what you like at Four Seasons Total Landscaping’

It is not clear how many ballots that could involve, although some opposing lawyers say it is far too few to overturn the election result. President-elect Joe Biden won the state by more than 70,000 votes.

Giuliani began the legal case saying he wants around 600,000 cases thrown out, but the number went up in the court of the day to as many as two million. 

I’M NOT AFTER $20K-A-DAY – AT LEAST NOT YET, SAYS RUDY GIULIANI

Rudy Giuliani traveled in person to make his case in court, amid chaos and drama amid the president’s legal team – with lawyers removing themselves from cases, a shakeup and reports of a legal ‘coup,’ 

The New York Times reported that Giuliani, who represented Trump pro bono during impeachment, was seeking $20,000 per day, above what even the nation’s top lawyers bill.  

Giuliani denied it, saying his pay would be determined later.’I never asked for $20,000,’ he told the paper. ‘The arrangement is, we’ll work it out at the end.’

As lawyer after lawyer quit his side, Trump’s legal adviser Giuliani ended up in court himself. His last federal appearance was as U.S. Attorney in Manhattan in 1992, the job which made him famous; his last court date was representing his alleged mistress’s daughter in Florida in 2018.

Over the next several hours, he fiddled with his Twitter account – retweeting another Trump lawyer who said his opening argument was ‘excellent’ – forgot which judge he was talking to and threw around wild, unsupported accusations about a nationwide conspiracy by Democrats to steal the election.

No such evidence has emerged since Election Day.

Giuliani needled an opposing lawyer, calling him ‘the man who was very angry with me, I forgot his name.’

He mistook the judge for a federal judge in a separate Pennsylvania district who rejected a separate Trump campaign case: ‘I was accused of not reading your opinion and that I did not understand it.’

During several hours of arguments, Judge Brann – an Obama appointee – told Giuliani that agreeing with him would disenfranchise the more than 6.8 million Pennsylvanians who voted.

‘Can you tell me how this result could possibly be justified?’ Brann questioned. Giuliani responded: ‘The scope of the remedy is because of the scope of the injury.’

The line of questioning on legal matters tripped up Giuliani repeatedly, with the judge asking what ‘standard of review’ – there are two – he should apply.

‘Err, the normal one,’ Giuliani replied. In fact they are called rational inquiry or strict scrutiny.  

And while the hearing was going on, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled against Donald Trump’s presidential campaign’s complaint that observers weren’t allowed close enough to observe the electoral count.

The 5-2 decision ruled that Pennsylvania counties could determine the particulars of election observers, and that state law only required they be ‘in the room’ when votes are counted.

The state supreme court found that restrictions that Philadelphia election officials put in place ‘were reasonable in that they allowed candidate representatives to observe the Board conducting its activities as prescribed under the Election Code.’

Hot seat: U.S. District Judge William Brann ran the hearing and ended by directing Giuliani to the nearest martini bar

Hot seat: U.S. District Judge William Brann ran the hearing and ended by directing Giuliani to the nearest martini bar

Among the evidence cited were claims made in the campaign’s own witness statements, including by a lawyer who served as an observer and shared observations from inside a vote canvassing facility. The court’s opinion, which reversed a lower court ruling which was the Trump camp’s only significant victory, noted that the campaign’s ‘own witness’ provided testimony which contradicted the claim.

It said the restrictions ‘did not deprive’ the observer of the ability to observe what went on with the canvassing process in a meaningful way.

The legal setback snatched away the Trump camp’s lone win after filing a series of state lawsuits challenging actions by county election officials in states that went to Democrat Joe Biden.  

Giuliani, however, was unbowed as he argued his case in federal court, launching lengthy tirades about fraud despite the case not being about it.

 This mail-in system, new mail-in system, this whole situation on a smaller scale goes back to as early as 1960 when Mayor Daley held back votes in Chicago so that he could tidy up the result to make sure it would go the way he wanted

‘It’s a widespread nationwide voter fraud of which this is a part. You’d have to be a fool to think this was an accident,’ Giuliani said.

Trump and his lawyers have yet to provide evidence of such a nationwide conspiracy – although they have increasingly pointed to voting machines that the president claims ‘deleted’  votes from him and ‘switched’ them to Joe Biden. 

Giuliani did not raise complaints about voting machines in court, instead claiming Democratic-controlled counties didn’t allow Republicans to see ‘a single absentee ballot’ during counting. This was not in the legal complaint the campaign had filed.

‘I used to vote by absentee ballot a lot, because I traveled a lot,’ Giuliani acknowledged during his argument. 

Rather than cite case law, Giuliani described a conspiracy to rig the election with simultaneous actions in big cities located within states Joe Biden won, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to Detroit and Milwaukee.

‘The places it happened, it just all happened to be big cities controlled by Democrats,’ he said.

He even invoked the close 1960 election and the infamous Daley machine in Chicago.

Legal analysis: The other leading figure in the Trump legal challenge, Jenna Ellis, tweeted this after the case closed. The advice was offered to both set of lawyers

Legal analysis: The other leading figure in the Trump legal challenge, Jenna Ellis, tweeted this after the case closed. The advice was offered to both set of lawyers

Venue: Rudy Giuliani was in court in Williamsport, PA, to try to overturn the election result

Venue: Rudy Giuliani was in court in Williamsport, PA, to try to overturn the election result

He called Philadelphia ‘well known for voter fraud’ and described poll workers as a ‘little mafia.’ Without evidence, he accused big cities of ‘holding back’ votes.

The dozens of affidavits Trump’s lawyers filed in the case, however, do not assert widespread fraud, but rather the potential for something fishy to occur because partisan poll watchers weren’t given an opportunity to view the results.

Judge Brann allowed Giuliani to talk at length as he wove together his scenario, even amid a string of individual legal defeats and having individual claims of dead people voting fall apart, including by a 94-year-old widow who told DailyMail.com she cast one of the ballots Trump claimed was submitted by a dead voter.

‘This mail-in system, new mail-in system, this whole situation on a smaller scale goes back to as early as 1960 when Mayor Daley held back votes in Chicago so that he could tidy up the result to make sure it would go the way he wanted,’ Giuliani said.

‘This practice of holding back votes, which happens in my city also your honor, is a time honored practice.’

Demand was so high to hear Trump’s lawyer in action that there were technical problems when a call-in line that was supposed to be equipped for 4,000 people got swamped. The judge said 8,000 people tried to get on. DailyMail.com was on for part of the hearing but the call cut out twice.

The judge then paused the hearing while officials tried to work out technical glitches.  

Attorney Daniel Donavan of Kirkland & Ellis, representing county officials, argued that the Trump team didn’t have standing and couldn’t make an case under the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause based on counties providing different levels of ability for voters to ‘cure’ ballots.

He noted that Giuliani’s claims of fraud weren’t in the latest version of his team’s complaint, and that many of the allegations had been deleted. 

‘That’s not in the complaint judge. There are not such allegations,’ he said. 

Another lawyer for the election officials, Mark Aronchick, went after Giuliani by name over and over again, saying he doesn’t know if he ‘has even read’ a key opinion he cited.

‘He remembers from his first year law school class something about standing,’ Aronchick said in one of multiple lines from his own argument dripping with sarcasm.

‘He called our election workers, our patriots … the mafia,’ he said, again going after Giuliani. ‘This just is disgraceful.’ Aronchick called Giuliani’s case ‘fantasy land.’

Trump made his comments on the Fox Business Network

Trump made his comments on the Fox Business Network

Aronchick later appeared on MSNBC where he mocked Giuliani’s approach calling it a ‘fact-free presentation.’

‘When you’re in court you have to talk about the complaint, you have to talk about your facts, you have to talk about the law,’ he said.

‘When you’re at Four Seasons Total Landscaping I guess you can talk about anything.’ 

Trump's new Pennsylvania lawyer Marc Scaringi cast doubt derailing a 'Biden presidency' through the courts immediately after Election Day

Trump’s new Pennsylvania lawyer Marc Scaringi cast doubt derailing a ‘Biden presidency’ through the courts immediately after Election Day

After hearing arguments and motions for a total of six hours, Brann peppered Giuliani with questions and gave his team until 5pm Wednesday to file a new brief. If they do not the case could be dismissed by default.

After a long day of arguments, he advised counsel on both sides ‘off the record’ about area restaurants, as well as a martini bar and a brew pub. 

Giuliani was defiant as he left court saying that if he loses, he will simply appeal. 

He had already said that the Trump campaign is preparing to lose election cases in Pennsylvania and other states in a strategy he said would ultimately hand a final decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

‘Frankly this is a case that we would like to get to the Supreme Court. So we’re prepared in some of these cases to lose and to appeal and to get it to the Supreme Court,’ Giuliani told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo Tuesday. 

The Supreme Court does not have to take up appeals and can simply leave lower-court rulings in place. And if Trump won, the state in which he won, or the Democratic party, could appeal to the Supreme Court too.

Giuliani also pointed to a Trump campaign lawsuit in Michigan. 

He also mentioned suits in Wisconsin and Georgia. ‘Then we’ll have three more right after that.’ In all of those states, networks declared Trump the winner. There is a hand recount under way in Georgia. 

Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, but many legal experts have predicted Trump’s efforts will fail, with Biden having amassed 306 electoral votes. 

Trump in September signaled he believed an election case would ultimately land before the Supreme Court, as he made the case to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

‘We need nine justices. You need that, with the unsolicited millions of ballots that they’re sending,’ he said.

A new member of Trump’s Pennsylvania team said publicly that there aren’t enough ‘bombshells’ out there that would prevent President-elect Joe Biden form taking office.

The Trump campaign brought on lawyer Marc Scaringi, who also has an AM radio show, after several other attorneys resigned under public pressure from efforts to declare the vote in Pennsylvania and other states invalid.

Scaringi himself cast doubt on the effort shortly after TV networks called the race for Biden after naming him the victor in Pennsylvania. 

‘I’ve been saying since Wednesday morning that Biden would win and to my friends out there … In my opinion there really are no bombshells that are about to drop that will derail a Biden presidency, including these lawsuits,’ he said on his show Nov. 7.   

‘I really don’t want to get into a discussion on any of these pending lawsuits file by the trump campaign or the state GOPs,’ he continued. ‘I will say that some of them have merit, like the lawsuits filed by our Pennsylvania Republican party … several of the other lawsuits don’t seem to have much evidence substantiated their claims,’ he said. 

 ‘At the end of the day, in my view, the litigation will not work,’ he said. ‘It will not reverse this election.’

STATE-BY-STATE: WHERE TRUMP IS SUING AND HOW IT’S GOING

PENNSYLVANIA

BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 82,092

The Trump campaign has made Pennsylvania a centerpiece of its legal efforts in hopes of prying its 20 Electoral Votes away from Joe Biden. The state was a focus of pre-election concern amid its vastly expanded mail-in ballots, court rulings about the state accepting mailed ballots after Election Day, and predictions voters would mishandle mail votes or fail to put their ballots inside a security sleeve before returning it.

The Trump campaign has raised broad public allegations of fraud and irregularities, while filing suits focused on restrictions placed on election observers – without immediate success.  

Amid a series of chaotic moves among Trump’s legal team, the president tasked personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani with overseeing his efforts. The former New York mayor appeared in federal court Tuesday, Nov. 17. He wove together a sweeping claim of a fraud conspiracy allegedly carried out by Democrats, saying there was a ‘widespread nationwide voter fraud.’ He added: ‘They stole an election.’ But Giuliani also acknowledged to the federal judge Matthew Brann that, ‘This is not a fraud case.’ The Trump campaign had shaved numerous allegations from its initial filing, now arguing that there had been constitutional violations because some counties allowed voters to ‘cure’ their mail-in ballots while others did not. ‘This is just disgraceful,’ said Mark Aronchick, representing the Allegheny County Board of Elections, in the county that includes Pittsburgh. 

Even as Giuliani was in court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against the Trump campaign, 5-2, after the Trump camp argued that election observers weren’t allowed close enough to observe the electoral count and did not get ‘meaningful access.’ The 5-2 decision ruled that Pennsylvania counties could determine the particulars of election observers, and that state law only required they be ‘in the room’ when votes are counted. Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis blasted the ruling and said ‘We are keeping all legal options open to fight for election integrity and the rule of law.’

Even the two dissenting justices in the state’s highest court wrote that the idea of tossing out ‘presumptively valid’ ballots based on ‘isolated irregularities’ was ‘misguided.’

On Monday after Election Day, the Trump campaign filed their big shot at overturning all mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, claiming that Democratic and Republican counties did not administer them in the same way; instances of fraud; and that poll watchers could not see them being counted. On that basis, they say, the results should not be certified on November 23.

The case faces an uphill struggle. The largest law firm  involved in it, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, quit.

The Supreme Court has already allowed mail-in ballots to be issued in Pennsylvania, and the claim of poll watchers not seeing them being counted had failed before when a Trump agreed that a ‘non-zero number’ of Republicans had observed the count in Philadelphia.

The new suit provided no actual evidence of fraud. It did include a claim by an Erie mailman that he had heard his supervisors talking about illegally backdating ballots; he was said to have recanted that claim when questioned by U.S. Postal Inspectors.

Trump’s campaign then filed a motion to intervene in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging a decision from the state’s highest court that allowed election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Tuesday’s Election Day that were delivered through Friday after Election Day.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on the Friday night before Election Day ordered county election boards in the state to separate mail-in ballots received after 8 p.m. EST on Election Day.

Pennsylvania election officials have said those ballots were already being separated.

The justices previously ruled there was not enough time to decide the merits of the case before Election Day but indicated they might revisit it afterwards.

Alito, joined by fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said in a written opinion that there was a ‘strong likelihood’ the Pennsylvania court’s decision violated the U.S. Constitution.

Pennsylvania’s Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar has said late-arriving ballots are a tiny proportion of the overall vote in the state.

Rudy Giuliani unveiled a ‘witness’ to his claims – a Republican poll watcher – at his infamous press conference outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping. But the man, Daryl Brooks, has not been included in any legal papers. He was previously convicted of exposing himself to underage girls. 

 

ARIZONA 

BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 9,543. RECOUNT IS LEGALLY IMPOSSIBLE

Trump’s campaign said the Saturday after Election Day it had sued in Arizona, alleging that the state’s most populous county incorrectly rejected votes cast on Election Day by some voters.

The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court in Maricopa County, said poll workers told some voters to press a button after a machine had detected an ‘overvote.’

The campaign said that decision disregarded voters’ choices in those races, and the lawsuit suggested those votes could prove ‘determinative’ in the outcome of the presidential race.

It is a modification of an earlier suit which was submitted and then withdrawn claiming that Trump voters were given sharpies to mark their ballots and claiming this made them more prone to error. The ‘sharpie-gate’ claims have no basis in fact, Arizona’s secretary of state says.

On Thursday Nov. 12, a judge savaged the affidavits produced to back the case as ‘spam’ and a Trump lawyer said they were not alleging fraud in any form. 

On Nov. 13th, lawyers for the Trump campaign dropped a lawsuit seeking a review of all ballots cast on Election Day amid the daunting vote margin. The Biden camp had called the suit ‘frivolous’ and a ‘waste of time.’ 

Amid the setbacks, the state GOP asked a judge to bar Maricopa County from certifying the election results. A judge was scheduled to hear the motion Wednesday, Nov. 18, with a looming Nov. 23 deadline for state certification of election results. An audit in the vote-rich county found not ballot discrepancies there. 

One claim that President Trump blasted out to his Twitter followers alleging that Dominion voting machines and software were part of a nationwide scheme to ‘delete’ Trump votes and ‘switch’ votes from Trump to Biden never made it into legal filings by his campaign lawyers. 

NEVADA 

BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 33,596 

A voter, a member of the media and two candidate campaigns sued Nevada’s secretary of state and other officials to prevent the use of a signature-verification system in populous Clark County and to provide public access to vote counting.

A federal judge rejected the request, saying there was no evidence the county was doing anything unlawful. 

Trump campaign officials have also claimed evidence that thousands of non-residents have voted but have not sued. 

The Trump campaign filed a new lawsuit Tuesday Nov. 17, two weeks after Election Day, claiming irregularities, suing on behalf of Trump electors in Carson City. The campaign claimed 15,000 people voted despite moving out of state. Following earlier claims some people labeled ‘out of state’ were found to be military voters stationed outside of Nevada. It revisited allegations that a machine used to verify signatures was not reliable. The suit asks a judge to either declare Trump the winner or nullify the results and prohibit the appointment of state electors. It also states that 500 provisional ballots got included in totals without being resolved.

One suit targets a Democratic elector who says she is a homeless veteran, seeking to avoid the state’s electors to Trump and disregard the vote.  

GEORGIA 

BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 14,028 

The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in state court in Chatham County that alleged late-arriving ballots were improperly mingled with valid ballots, and asked a judge to order late-arriving ballots be separated and not be counted.

The case was dismissed on November 5, finding there was ‘no evidence’ ballots referenced in the suit came in after the state’s deadline, and no evidence Chatham County failed to comply with the law. 

The two Republican senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, called for the GOP Secretary of State to quit claiming there were election irregularities Monday. They offered no evidence and he scoffed: ‘That’s not going to happen.’

A suit by Atlanta attorney Lin Wood, who supports Trump and who represented Richard Jewell in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bomb case, is seeking a court order to prevent Georgia from certifying its results, and calling for mail-in ballots not to be included in totals.  He is seeking to throw out a March 6, 2020 consent agreement reached by the Georgia secretary of state and the Democratic Party. The decree put in place procedures for verifying ballot signatures.

A group of four voters voluntarily withdrew their suit after arguing in a complaint to exclude votes from eight counties, saying ballots were cast illegally. 

Three Trump campaign claims of dead people ‘voting’ in Georgia turned out not to be true. 

Georgia undertook an automatic recount due to the closeness of the margin, and conducted a hand count as part of an audit.  Officials were expecting to announce the result Nov. 18. Although the count uncovered additional tranches of ballots, it was not expected to change the result.   

MICHIGAN 

BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 148, 152

On Monday Nov. 9 Trump filed a federal case alleging fraud and then later a separate demand that the votes are not certified on November 23.

In the first case, one witness – possibly misgendered by the Trump lawyers – claimed that they had been told by another person that mysterious ballots arrived late on vehicles with out of state plates and all were for Biden; that they had seen voters coached to vote for Biden; and that they were told to process ballots without any checks.

It also included poll watchers and ‘challengers’ who said they could not get close enough to see what was happening.  

A federal judge has yet to issue any response on when and how it will be looked into. The Trump campaign also filed the same case again to the wrong federal court on Thursday Nov. 12 for no apparent reason. 

Trump’s campaign last Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Michigan to halt the vote count in the state. The lawsuit alleged that campaign poll watchers were denied ‘meaningful access’ to counting of ballots, plus access to surveillance video footage of ballot drop boxes.

On Thursday 6, Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens dismissed the case, saying there was no legal basis or evidence to halt the vote and grant requests.

The Trump campaing also asked a court to stop canvassing boards in Michigan and in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, from certifying the results. 

A week after filing its federal case, the Trump campaign had yet to serve Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson with a copy of its complaint. 

U.S. District Judge Janet Neff gave the campaign a Nov. 17 deadline or face dismissal ‘for failure to diligently prosecute this case.’

There was drama the evening of Nov. 17 when two Republican officials refused for a time refused to certify the results from Detroit. They backtracked hours later in the face of outrage and accusations of racism. President Trump hailed them online for their ‘courage’ Tuesday night, but they flip-flopped minutes later and agreed to certify the result. The initial refusal had been seen as a first step towards Trump having the Republican-held Michigan legislature ignore the election results and seat its own Electoral College electors who back Trump, in a bid to force a contested election into the Congress.

WISCONSIN  

BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 20,565 

On Nov. 18th, the Trump campaign paid $3 million to get a partial recount in two Wisconsin counties, Milwaukee and Dane, that went heavily for Joe Biden. The request came hours before a deadline Wednesday.

The race was close enough, with a difference of more than 20,000, that Trump could request a recount, but was required to pay. Counties must complete their work by December 1. 

Past recounts have had only marginal impacts on the final count. A recount of the 2016 presidential election netted Trump just 131 additional votes, with a victory margin of 23,000. That recount was requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein and opposed by Trump. 

 

U.S. POSTAL SERVICE 

The U.S. Postal Service said about 1,700 ballots had been identified in Pennsylvania at processing facilities during two sweeps on Thursday after Election Day and were being delivered to election officials, according to a court filing early Friday.

The Postal Service said 1,076 ballots, had been found at its Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center. About 300 were found at the Pittsburgh processing center, 266 at a Lehigh Valley facility and others at other Pennsylvania processing centers.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington is overseeing a lawsuit by Vote Forward, the NAACP, and Latino community advocates.

Sullivan on Thursday ordered twice-daily sweeps at Postal Service facilities serving states with extended ballot receipt deadlines. 

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