Stacey Ritzen
President Donald Trump’s legal battle over his reelection campaign was delivered a devastating blow on Saturday when a Pennsylvania judge shut down an attempt to invalidate millions of votes cast for President-elect Joe Biden. The verdict was delivered by United States District Judge Matthew Brann, a conservative judge appointed through a compromise between former President Barack Obama and Republican Senator Pat Toomey, in a Williamsport, Pennsylvania courtroom.
In a 37-page opinion, Brann essentially mocked the case of Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, two of Trump’s few remaining lawyers, who were not able to present a single shred of evidence of widespread voter fraud or corruption. At one point Brann even compared the team’s arguments to “Frankenstein’s Monster” because of how “haphazardly stitched together” the dueling legal theories were.
“This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence,” stated Brann, in the blistering rebuttal. “In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”
“Plaintiffs seek to remedy the denial of their votes by invalidating the votes of millions of others. Rather than requesting that their votes be counted, they seek to discredit scores of other votes, but only for one race,” Brann later blisteringly added. “This is simply not how the Constitution works.”
With few options left, the Trump campaign is quickly painting itself into a corner.
Lawyers have predictably asked the Third Circuit to expedite an appeal to the Pennsylvania case as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court—but without a single shred of evidence, it seems unlikely anything is going to change. The Supreme Court rarely gets involved in United States elections, except for in rare instances such as the 2000 presidential election when the entire thing came down to a specific number of contested ballots in Palm Beach County, Florida.
For Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election, he would have to do the same in several states where margins are literally millions of votes.
For those not fluent in lawyer-speak, these rulings can be confusing. But make no mistake—though his campaign will likely continue to flail and waste the time of courts in swing states over the next several days—Trump’s goose is cooked. Since Brann’s decision was handed down, journalists and legal experts on Twitter have been explaining the ruling in layman’s terms.
With Michigan likely to certify its election results on Monday, Pennsylvania will soon be the least of Trump’s worries. Too bad, so sad—hate to see it!