The
RNC
clownsuits
have
already
begun!
This
afternoon,
RNC
lawyer
Alex
Kaufman
donned
his
big
red
nose
and
stomped
his
giant
clown
shoes
all
over
the
federal
docket
in
the
Southern
District
of
Georgia.
And
for
it,
he
got
read
for
filth
by
Judge
R.
Stan
Baker,
a
Trump
appointee.
“I
understand
that
in
today’s
day
and
time,
individuals
may
play
fast
and
loose
with
the
facts,
but
we
don’t
do
that
in
this
courtroom.
When
a
lawyer
speaks,
this
court
expects
that
the
lawyer
and
their
clients
present
nothing
more
than
the
ruth.
Our
system
of
justice
demands
it,”
he
said
from
the
bench.
“Plaintiffs
counsel
missed
that
mark
in
this
case.”
The
gravamen
of
the
complaint
was
that
election
officials
in
several
counties
accepted
hand-delivered
absentee
ballots
over
the
weekend,
and
that
is
against
Georgia
law.
Or
if
it
is
not
against
the
law,
other
counties
did
not
accept
ballots
over
the
weekend,
and
that
violates
the
Equal
Protection
Clause.
The
problem
with
the
first
argument
is
that
Fulton
County
Superior
Court
Judge
Kevin
Farmer
already
dropkicked
it
last
week,
lecturing
Kaufman
that
he
was
confusing
advanced
voting
with
absentee
voting.
And
the
problem
with
the
second
argument
is
that
slightly
different
ballot
access
between
counties
has
never
been
deemed
to
violate
Equal
Protection.
Plus
the
plaintiffs
had
no
idea
which
counties
accepted
ballots
over
the
weekend,
and
which
did
not
—
indeed,
their
complaint
alleged
that
Athens-Clarke
County
remained
open,
and
its
lawyer
represented
to
the
Judge
Stan
Baker
that
it
did
not.
But
other
than
that
…
bang-up
job,
RNC!
The
four-hour
hearing
was
what
could
charitably
be
described
as
a
shitshow.
Kaufman’s
first
witness,
an
RNC
official,
was
unable
to
explain
why
his
organization
was
surprised
to
find
election
offices
open
over
the
weekend.
Was
this
standard
practice
over
several
election
cycles?
(Yes.)
Did
the
counties
provide
adequate
notice
that
they
intended
to
accept
absentee
ballots
over
the
weekend?
(Also,
yes.)
He
could
not
say!
His
second
witness
was
a
Georgia
GOP
official
who
testified
that
she
filmed
herself
trying
to
observe
the
receipt
of
absentee
ballots
in
Fulton
County,
but
was
turned
away.
This
appears
to
have
been
the
result
of
a
mix-up,
and
within
a
couple
of
hours,
observers
were
allowed
in.
The
witness
conceded
that
she
was
permitted
to
enter
the
building
once
she
promised
to
stop
filming,
but
declined
the
offer.
When
counsel
for
Chatham,
Cobb,
Clarke,
Clayton,
Gwinnett,
and
DeKalb
Counties
were
up
for
argument,
they
pointed
out
that
the
state
court
had
explicitly
rejected
Kaufman’s
interpretation
of
Georgia
law,
which
turns
on
a
seemingly
deliberate
confusion
of
absentee
ballots
and
early
voting.
They
noted
that
most
counties
across
the
state
kept
the
doors
open
and
accepted
hand-returned
absentee
ballots,
but
the
RNC
chose
only
to
challenge
the
practice
in
seven
large,
Democratic-leaning
counties.
And
they
accused
the
plaintiffs
of
forum
shopping,
since
most
of
the
defendant
counties
were
in
the
Northern
District
of
Georgia,
not
the
Southern.
If
that
last
accusation
was
correct,
the
RNC’s
plan
appears
to
have
backfired
in
spectacular
fashion.
From
the
first,
Judge
Baker
refused
to
accept
that
allowing
voters
to
cast
ballots
had
a
partisan
valance,
tut-tutting
that
referring
to
them
as
“Democrat
counties”
was
inappropriate.
When
Kaufman
and
his
colleague
Dwight
Feemster
suggested
that
they
believed
other
counties
did
not
accept
ballots
over
the
weekend,
the
judge
chided
them
for
failing
to
submit
evidence.
“You
don’t
believe
it,
but
there’s
no
evidence
in
the
record,
correct?”
And
when
they
mumbled
that
the
Georgia
statute
in
question
was
complicated,
he
cut
them
off,
saying,
“Just
because
it
cuts
against
your
client
doesn’t
make
it
difficult?”
After
a
brief
recess,
Judge
Baker
returned
to
issue
his
ruling
from
the
bench.
He
denied
the
request
to
segregate
the
ballots
accepted
over
the
weekend
for
all
the
reasons:
lack
of
jurisdiction,
comity,
traditional
injunction
factors, Purcell
principle,
laches,
lack
of
evidence,
etc.
He
also
read
Kaufman
and
Feemster
for
filth
in
a
hearing
that
was
telecast
live
—
almost
like
he
knew
that
this
shit
matters
for
a
functioning
democracy!
In
a
folksy
ruling,
read
out
in
his
strong
Georgia
twang, the
judge
dinged
the
lawyers
for
failing
to
exercise
“basic
reading
comprehension
skills,”
joking
that
the
defendants
would
require
a
“flux
capacitor”
for
time
travel
to
comply
with
the
plaintiffs’
interpretation
of
the
law.
“If
you
read
the
entirety
of
the
statute
instead
of
cherry-picking
it,
you’d
realize
that
the
defendants
did
not
violate
it
at
all,”
he
scolded.
He
seemed
incredulous
that
the
plaintiffs
would
demand
that
legitimate
voters
who
cast
their
ballot
in
good
faith
would
have
their
votes
discarded
in
“Democrat
counties,”
while
voters
who
did
the
same
in
“Republican
counties,”
who
were
not
named
as
defendants,
would
not.
How
could
this
not
be
a
violation
of
Equal
Protection,
the
court
wondered.
And
he
accused
the
plaintiffs
of
making
arguments
that
were
“factually
and
legally
incorrect”
to
reinforce
false
narratives
about
voting.
“Lawyers’
words
matter,”
Judge
Baker
admonished,
warning
that
there
could
be
“fierce
repercussions
for
lawyers
who
violate
that
duty
of
candor.”
And
although
he
declined
to
impose
sanctions,
he
warned
against
further
shenanigans
when
the
country
is
on
edge.
“Please
don’t
take
us
any
closer
to
that
ledge,”
he
concluded.
All
in
all,
it
was
a
helluva
day
for
the
vaunted
legal
machine
the
RNC
spent
the
past
four
years
building,
to
the
potential
exclusion
of
GOTV
efforts.
Lara
Trump,
take
a
bow!
RNC
v.
Mahoney [Docket
via
Court
Listener]
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
produces
the
Law
and
Chaos substack and podcast.
Chris
Kathryn
