Trump’s legal team lost six more court cases Friday, even as he continued to insist that he had won the election. Even judges appointed by Trump have rejected his claims of fraud, presented without evidence, in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and Wisconsin.
“It can be easy to blithely move on to the next case with a petition so obviously lacking, but this is sobering,” wrote Justice Brian Hagedorn of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, agreeing with the court’s decision not to hear a lawsuit filed by a conservative group that sought to invalidate the election in that state.
“The relief being sought by the petitioners is the most dramatic invocation of judicial power I have ever seen,” added Hagedorn, who is part of the court’s conservative wing. “Judicial acquiescence to such entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to every future election. . . . This is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread.” [20 days of fantasy and failure: Inside Trump’s quest to overturn the election] Two of the biggest defeats took place in Arizona and Nevada, where judges tossed full-scale challenges to the states’ election results filed by the Republican Party and the Trump campaign, respectively. Both judges noted in their opinions that the plaintiffs did not prove their claims of fraud.…
In a detailed, 35-page decision, Judge James T. Russell of the Nevada District Court in Carson City vetted each claim of fraud and wrongdoing made by the Trump campaign in the state and found that none was supported by convincing proof. The judge dismissed the challenge with prejudice, ruling that the campaign failed to offer any basis for annulling more than 1.3 million votes cast in the state’s presidential race.
The campaign “did not prove under any standard of proof that illegal votes were cast and counted, or legal votes were not counted at all, due to voter fraud, nor in an amount equal to or greater than” Biden’s margin of victory, which was about 33,600 votes, Russell wrote.…
In an interview with Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs on Friday, Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani dismissed the Nevada loss, saying the campaign would appeal but that “Nevada’s not critical to us.” Instead, he said the campaign was pinning its hopes on efforts in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and, “boy, on Wisconsin.”
However, the Trump campaign already suffered defeat at the Wisconsin Supreme Court this week. And in federal court, District Judge Brett H. Ludwig expressed skepticism Friday about Trump’s arguments as he held an initial status hearing in a suit seeking to overturn Biden’s victory there.
While the hearing largely dealt only with setting a rapid schedule of filings and hearings next week, Ludwig — a Trump nominee who took the bench only in September — noted that the president has requested “extraordinary” relief. He added that he had a “very, very hard time” seeing why Trump brought the action in federal court. Ludwig also termed a Trump request to “remand” the election back to the state legislature “bizarre.”
Meanwhile, in Arizona, Judge Randall Warner of the Maricopa County Superior Court ruled Friday that he found “no misconduct, no fraud and no effect on the outcome of the election” in a suit brought by the Arizona Republican Party and its chairwoman, Kelli Ward.
Trump’s lawyers plan to appeal.
But other Republicans in the state have made clear the election is over. On Friday, the GOP speaker of the Arizona House firmly rejected calls from Trump’s campaign for the legislature to disregard the popular vote and declare Trump the winner of the state’s 11 electoral votes.
“As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him,” Speaker Rusty Bowers said in a statement. “But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”
The Trump campaign faced several other legal defeats around the country on Friday — including in Minnesota, where the state’s highest court dismissed a Republican lawsuit seeking to delay certification of the election results. Biden beat Trump there by more than 233,012 votes.
Despite the cascade of losses, Trump and his allies pressed forward with new cases. In Arizona, a second formal election contest was filed in state court Friday by a group of plaintiffs represented by the conservative Thomas More Society, the same organization whose request to overturn the election results was roundly rejected by Hagedorn, the Wisconsin judge, on Friday. The campaign also filed a new lawsuit in Georgia state court seeking to invalidate the state’s election results.
Apparently the Trump strategy is to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s election, setting the stage for a four-year campaign to undermine anything he does. But this overwhelming series of losses in every state, before both Democratic and Republican judges, may backfire by demonstrating conclusively that the legal fight is vengeful and lacks any merit. It is not likely to end until after the electoral college votes to certify the winner on December 14. Meanwhile the Trump campaign has collected more than $2 million to keep appealing the results, and the lawyers are well paid for their long string of defeats.
Trump the super grifter has raised over $200 million with his “election is a fraud scam” . Most of those donations may be used as income by him. Is this how he is paying off his $400+ million debt to Deutsche Bank?
He is collecting money to pay off the huge debt he owes to Deutsche Bank, but he is trying to act as though it is to fight the “stolen” election. It is so sad that his supporters continue to be delusional and blindly follow Don the Con. It’s even sadder that the shady Republican Party continues to ride on his coattails.https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/12/02/trumps-deutsche-bank-loans-appear-to-be-in-trouble/?sh=230749611e1f
So much losing! There will be so much losing, America will get tired of losing!
Trump’s latest go-to religious zealot for one of the highest level, government policy-making jobs at the Pentagon is Scott O’Grady, nominated for Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. O’Grady’s retweets show he spreads the lie that Trump won by a landslide and that Biden attempted a coup. O’Grady’s other retweets included a call for Trump to declare martial law and, the furtherance of Sidney Powell’s lunacy.
Allegedly in 2014, Scott killed two of God’s creatures (elephants) while on a hunting trip in Africa. Similar to Trump, O’Grady’s view is that he is a deity- chosen man. While surviving in Bosnia, after having been shot down, he saw Our Lady of Medjugorje “shimmering in his mind’s eye” and, she and God saved him. Evidently, O’Grady has no trouble believing he is more special to God than the children who could have been celestially saved and weren’t, like Anne Frank and the families killed in ethnic cleansing.
Just as security clearances will ignore the religious beliefs that ordain O’Grady as special and his straying from reality, so will media. The backlash from tribalists is too risky for them.
O’Grady said in an interview that the most important time he spends each day comes while reading the Bible. O’Grady’s patron, trump, tweaks the view slightly. He brandishes the Bible (upside down) for public spectacle delivering on the predicted form that fascism would take.
O’Grady also claims that Trump won California. Biden won that state by more than five million votes. O’Grady is delusional.
Agree.
Adding-
People like Barr, O’Grady, Leonard Leo, Paul Weyrich, Jerome Powell, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Thomas, Gorsuch and Bill and Melinda Gates work against a robust democracy. They thwart economic fairness and opportunity and they impose public policy detrimental to society’s advancement. Their goals are aligned with grift and, religious sect expansion.
Gee, I guess maybe there are conservatives with principals out there who actually value retaining our attempts at democracy (snark alert). I may disagree with their politics vehemently, but I applaud them for their stand for the rule of law.
On Monday President Trump’s campaign lawyer and former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova said that fired Trump cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs should be executed for saying that the election was the “most secure in United States history.”
DiGenova, appearing on the Howie Carr show, which simulcasts on Newsmax, took aim at Krebs as an aside during a wheels-off segment full of false claims about how the United States election had been rigged.
“Anybody who thinks that this election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said.
This is not just a random Parler troll trying to get attention. This is an attorney speaking on behalf of the President of the United States’ re-election campaign. And while it may read like a macabre joke, the direct nature of diGenova’s comments make it impossible to interpret as anything other than a real wish/threat against a public servant for offering truthful testimony.
DiGenova should be disbarred for threatening violence on behalf of his client.
Krebs undoubtedly has received death threats because of these remarks.
Di Genova credits the instruction he received at the K-12 private school he attended for his knowledge of American history and government. (His education continued at Georgetown’s law school).
Di Genova’s remarks are in an interview titled, “Legends of the Law”, at his website, di Genova and Toensing. LLP.
Linda: If De Genova graduated from Georgetown’s law school, he for sure learned that saying Chris Krebs “should be executed” is not acceptable behavior. Nobody with any brain talks like that. What does he expect to get out of this?
Di Genova wants Trump to like him
Carol-
Evidently, Barrett learned originalism at Notre Dame where Trump-loving Lou Holtz is revered. It appears Notre Dame’s president is also a Trump fan.
I see a republican strategy here. Local leadership sounds rational while national leadership remains silent and allows the trump to blow, warning of the alpaca lips. That way the Republican Party can have its local cake and eat its national cake as if it were two different cakes.
This may be a good gamut, but opponents of privatizers, grifters, and worshippers of pseudo-freedoms need to call out the party as a whole. If the republicans want a party, they need to repudiate the racism, the deals with public land going to individuals, the dramatic de-regulation of industry that cannot help but endanger the public, … I could go on.
Here in Tennessee we have a senator that resigned rather than support trump and another that retired. Both republicans could have repudiated the radical path of their party, but they have been silent. Their silence indicts their intentions.
I’m ashamed of Lamar. I knew him as a man of great intelligence and integrity. Yet he remained quiet during the time when his voice would have carried a lot of weight among his fellow Republicans.
Trump’s election fraud claims are so bizarre and over the line, that even many Republicans and conservative justices that Trump appointed have rejected those fantasy stories.
Did any of you catch the video of Rudy’s fart-fest “testimony” at that Michigan Election Fraud Hearing? His farting was the most honest thing he enunciated, the rest coming out of his other orifice was total bilge. Not to mention there were a line-up of crackpots, stooges and wackos uttering wild allegations of voter fraud. Where the hell did Giuliani and his crew dredge up these crazies?! Rudy has a podcast on WABC-770, titled, I kid you not, “Rudy Giuilani’s Common Sense.” Ha, ha, ha, ha, too funny. From the WABC web site: Listen to Rudy Giuliani Monday to Friday and Sundays on New York’s TalkRadio 77. No thanks.
I appreciate this most supreme of ironies, that this demagogue, legend-in-his-own-mind poser who’s run his Presidency, his campaign, & in fact his entire life on the principle of “win — anything, any way,” & if that proves too difficult, at least try to make it look like you won to anyone who’ll believe you, is concluding this most infamous chapter of his life with a colossal loss made even more spectacular by an unbroken string of losses, even in territories previously his, each confirming & magnifying the initial loss by orders of magnitude, & apart from the first one, they’ve ALL been initiated through his, & no one else’s, choice & insistence. Most unsuccessful candidates lose a single election ONCE; through his own efforts, Trump has lost this one dozens of times AND through his denial actually persists in increasing the number.
To paraphrase a quote from Trump’s supporter McConnell: “He was defeated. He was given an explanation. Nevertheless, he persisted.”
It is astonishing that Trump doesn’t realize that he has turned himself into a whining, petulant baby, an international laughing stock. The history books will treat him as a fool, based on his own actions.
Diane: Here’s one more case of Trump being an embarrassment and a fool to the whole world.
………………….
The Washington Post
News Alert
Dec. 5, 1:55 p.m. EST
Trump calls Georgia governor to pressure him for help overturning Biden’s win in the state
President Trump called Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Saturday morning to urge him to persuade the state legislature to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state and asked the governor to order an audit of absentee ballot signatures, the latest brazen effort by the president to interfere in the 2020 election.
In the call, Trump pressed Kemp to call a special session of the state legislature to get lawmakers to override the results and appoint electors that would back him, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Kemp declined the entreaty from Trump, which came hours before the president is scheduled to hold a rally in Georgia on behalf of the state’s two GOP senators.
Kemp said he does not have the legal authority to overturn the election results.
So far, the election officials in Georgia have been remarkable in their determination to follow the will of the voters.
I’ve also been thinking (at least hoping) that’s how history will see him. It seems so fitting that the biggest, most public loss of his life is first, NOT the election, but the futile attempt to reject the election; & second, brought on AND increased entirely by his own statements & actions!
Actually, not astonishing. it45’s mental growth is stunted at approximately the 2-year-old mark. They have tantrums (hence, “Terrible Twos”)–that’s what they do. (Geez–they could use this as a Geico commercial!) I think London was the first place to introduce the it45 baby balloon (we had one at our Chicago Women’s March in 2018, I think).
Also, everyone MUST view Anderson Cooper’s explanation of object permanency as related to it: I’m pretty sure it went viral.
Again, I highly recommend Mary Trump’s book–it45’s psyche explained in approx. 19 sentences (& the rest is all fun reading).
&–she’s coming out w/another book in July!
A study of the 2000 presidential election found that the vote in 12 of 20 toss up states is determined by the votes of the conservative religious.
Until an effective strategy is developed to wrest elections from conservative clergy, democracy will be held hostage by them and their followers.
Moscow Mitch thinks he might be getting him some money from me. HA, HA, HA. HA! 👎🏿[Gee. I’m a patriot if I do. Well, guess I’m not a patriotic person. I gave money to Bernie.]
…………………………….
Patriot, we are at a crossroads in Georgia.
We can either fight with everything we’ve got to win the runoffs and SAVE our Senate Majority, or we can give up and let Chuck Schumer and his cronies win.
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carol: This & the hilarity of a MAGA crazy train telling GA GOP voters to “stay at home in protest” because not sure their ballots will count!
retiredbutmissthekids: I do hope that the whole lot of MAGAts in Georgia stay home on voting day. It’s hard to understand why this is a good way to protest.
This is all irrelevant. What do Glenn Greenwald and Jacobin say? They’re the real authorities. 😂
Is someone keeping track of Trump’s “ruling by Twitter”? Historians are going to have a field day with the crimes, ignorance and stupidity that never stops.
………………
Historians sue Trump administration to stop ‘bonfire of records in the Rose Garden
Screenshots are not “complete copies” of presidential records, they say
Dec. 5, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EST
Two historian groups, an independent archive and a watchdog organization are suing President Trump and other administration officials to ensure compliance with records laws, the groups announced this week. With Trump facing “potential legal and financial exposure once he leaves office,” the groups said, “there is a growing risk that he will destroy records of his presidency before leaving.”
The American Historical Association, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — a frequent plaintiff in Trump-related legal challenges — joined in the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Presidential records are always at risk because the law that’s supposed to protect them is so weak,” Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, said in a statement. “The archive, historians and CREW are suing to put some backbone in the law and prevent any bonfire of records in the Rose Garden.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the National Archives and Records Administration said it could not comment on pending litigation.
The Presidential Records Act requires presidents and White House personnel to preserve all records of “the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of the president’s constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties.” The National Archives and Records Administration restricts these records from public view until at least five years after the end of an administration; some records can be withheld for much longer….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/12/05/trump-presidential-records-lawsuit-historians/
Well, if he destroys the records of his maladministration, think of the money that will be saved by not paying for the Donald Trump Library. Really, the tweets are enough, and they can all be on a thumb drive.
I will be surprised if between now and December 14th, Trump doesn’t attempt to declare martial law and suspend the U.S. Constitution so he becomes the law.
Some of his loyalists have been urging him to do it. I think those loyalists are priming the pump for martial law because Trump told them to do it to get his loyalist, deplorable base ready to support him.
I have recently been reading about the history of the use of martial law in the United States and the established law behind it. Every piece I have read indicates that Trump will fail with martial law, too.
If Trump attempts to use Martial Law as a coup to get rid of the U.S. Constitution and take over the country as a dictator, the military may stop him because of the Oath every officer takes to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, Congress can overrule him and the courts can also get involved by declaring that Trump’s attempt to declare martial law is illegal and unconstitutional.
Trump’s excuses to declare martial law will be based on his unproven claims of election fraud, the spreading of the virus, and the increased deaths from COVID-19, that he caused. He also may claim that peaceful protests cause unrest and must be crushed with violence.
This comment is WAY off topic.
I was reading an interview with Candice Bergen. It appears she once had a date with The Donald. Can you imagine dating someone who has to color coordinate everything…limousine, suit and boots. Oh good grief. Looking good is everything. Maybe he did once know philosophy but his dementia leaves him now speaking with the broken English of a not very bright fourth grader.
…………………………………
And about that famous date with Donald Trump, when she was at the University of Pennsylvania? He was shy, quiet and introspective, one presumes?
“Yes, in fact his knowledge of philosophy goes way beyond,” she said, laughing. “We went to, I think, a steakhouse but he picked me up from school in a limousine, which was unusual, and it was a burgundy limousine and he was wearing a burgundy suit and burgundy patent leather boots. I just thought, this guy can color coordinate with the best of them. I think I was home by 9. I remember it being just very slow going and heavy lifting, it was just like pulling a sledge. And then I was home early.”
“ Meanwhile the Trump campaign has collected more than $2 million to keep appealing the results, and the lawyers are well paid for their long string of defeats”.
One of those lawyers, of course, is Rudy. I wonder if Donald has worked out a system where a percentage of his pal’s legal fees get funneled to him.
I know that sounds far fetched…but everything I’ve seen of Trump, dating back to way before this four year debacle, has been about making headlines and money in any way possible.
But, yes: four years of partisan obstruction is definitely on the way. “Revenge” for how nasty the Dems were during Donald’s four. Never mind the eight years of GOP obstruction during the Obama years.
People have forgotten the meaning of the word “compromise”.
Yadda, yadda, boo-boo! The LOSER lost three times.
………………………………
The New York Times
BREAKING NEWS
Georgia officials said they would re-certify the state’s election results after a second recount confirmed Joe Biden’s victory there.
Monday, December 7, 2020 10:11 AM EST
“We have now counted legally cast ballots, three times, and the results remain unchanged,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a news conference Monday.
The announcement is the latest blow to President Trump’s attempts to subvert the election results in Georgia. He has now lost in the initial election tally; a manual hand recount ordered by the state; and this recount, which was requested by his campaign and completed by machines after the state certified its results last month.
Having list the recount again and again, Trump wants Go Ernie Kemp to call a special session of the legislature to throw out the vote and appoint electors who will vote for Trump. Kemp said no.
Not that we hadn’t noticed before; but he’s definitely showing his true colors in sharp relief, now. Hopefully some of his followers will start to really get the message.
Trump is going wacko, even worse than normally. Good grief, what a lame-brained man/child. He is an international embarrassment.
Mary Trump: “For the first time in his life, Donald is in a situation he cannot get out of. He’s never won anything legitimately in his life, but being on the winning side of things has always been so important to him, that he’s willing to lie, cheat, steal, use other people’s money, power, influence to get the win. That can’t happen now. So he’s in a state of terror, he’s in a state of rage, and he’s in a state of total helplessness right now.”
………………………..
Trump Asked Pennsylvania House Speaker About Overturning His Loss
President Trump has failed to persuade elected Republicans in Michigan and Georgia to subvert the will of voters, and his effort appears to have stalled in Pennsylvania too.
Intensifying his efforts to undo his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., President Trump twice called the Republican speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in recent days to encourage challenges to the official results in the state.
Mr. Trump pressed the speaker, Bryan Cutler, on how Republicans planned to reverse the results of an election that Mr. Biden was certified to have won by more than 80,000 votes, a spokesman for Mr. Cutler, Michael Straub, said Monday night.
“He did ask what options were available to the legislature,” Mr. Straub said, referring to the president.
A series of lawsuits by the Trump campaign and its allies claiming widespread voting fraud in Pennsylvania have been tossed out of state and federal courts.
Supporters of Mr. Trump’s baseless fraud claims have called on Republican-led legislatures in several states to overturn the results, although Pennsylvania’s General Assembly is out of session and cannot be called back except by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat.
“Cutler made it very clear what power the legislature has and does not have,” said Mr. Straub, who characterized the president’s calls as seeking information rather than pressuring the speaker. The calls were reported earlier by The Washington Post.
Pennsylvania is the third state in which Mr. Trump is known to have reached out to top elected Republicans to try to reverse the will of voters. He earlier summoned Michigan legislative leaders to the White House, and over the weekend he pressed Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia to call upon that state’s legislature to reverse the election.
At a rally in Georgia on Saturday, Mr. Trump said Mr. Kemp “could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing.” But Mr. Kemp has repeatedly declined to call for a special session of the legislature, and state election officials recertified Georgia’s results on Monday after another recount again showed that Mr. Biden had won the state…
1,500 Attorneys Call On Bar Associations To Condemn Trump Campaign Lawyers
In an open letter, 1,500 attorneys slammed the Donald Trump campaign for seeking to overturn the will of U.S. voters and called on bar associations to investigate lawyers who filed lawsuits on Trump’s behalf.
The letter’s signatories include law professors, judges and local officials. They accuse Rudy Giuliani and other Trump campaign lawyers of violating their code of conduct by lying and filing baseless legal actions, calling their behavior a “disgrace.”
“More than 35 losses in election-related cases have made one thing painfully clear: President Trump’s barrage of litigation is a pretext for a campaign to undermine public confidence in the outcome of the 2020 election, which inevitably will subvert constitutional democracy,” states the letter, organized by Lawyers Defending Democracy.
It notes that Trump’s “primary agents and enablers in this effort are lawyers,” who are obligated by “oath and ethical rules to uphold the rule of law.”
Bar associations “need to condemn this abuse and bar disciplinary authorities need to investigate it,” the letter demands….
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lawyers-condemn-trump-campaign-lawsuits_n_5fcef25fc5b626e08a2c7d4e?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006