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Despite their abject failure so far getting courts to intercede to STOP THE COUNT!, the Trump campaign has vowed to fight on in the courts. Whom they plan to fight and where is not entirely clear — what venue is appropriate when you’re suing MATH? But the war continues, with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniels promising a battle to overturn Biden’s margin in Michigan, which currently stands at 143,000 votes.
With Nevada and Arizona on the brink of being called (as of this writing) Biden will have 270 electoral votes without Pennsylvania or Georgia. Nevertheless, the Trump campaign is aiming most of its firepower at Philadelphia, as the city’s electoral officials tabulate a massive haul of mail-in ballots transforming the “red mirage” into a “blue wave.”
Errr, make that “firepower.”
Cain, a current member of the Texas House of Representatives and former member of his high school’s varsity cheerleading squad, announced his plans from an account which was restored from a 141-day suspension in January after he tweeted “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis” at then presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke. We look forward to reading about what happened when he hopped off the plane and started sh*t-talking the Eagles to his Uber driver. Probably.
And Cain isn’t the only member of Trumpland pinning his hopes on vague threats to sue over uhh, something. Here’s Lou Dobbs demanding that the Justice Department send in goons to stop the counting.
“Where isn’t the Republican party en masse demanding the Department of Justice move in here? It’s been absent for the entire process. Can you give us an answer to that?” the Fox Business host demanded of former Director of National Intelligence/current Team Trump apparel model Ric Grenell.
“Look, I …,” stammered Grenell, “What I can say is that some of those individuals you mentioned have absolutely reached out and said what can we do and are fully involved.”
“I’m not asking for a little sweetheart letter,” thundered Dobbs, “I’m asking why aren’t they demanding the Department of Justice a political crime as it occurs.” He then cut short the interview, apologizing for “delaying your legal action.”
Later Dobbs interviewed Harmeet Dhillon, co-chair of Women for Trump and former clerk for Judge Paul Victor Niemeyer on the Fourth Circuit.
First Dhillon grossly mischaracterized the status of poll watchers in Philadelphia, accusing canvassers of counting votes “without Republican election monitors there to witness it,” a fact contradicted by the Trump campaign’s own counsel that very day in federal court.
“It is an outrage that those people are in contempt of court,” Dhillon continued, despite no finding of contempt by any federal or state judge.
“Meanwhile we’re waiting for the United States Supreme Court, which the president has nominated three justices, to step in and do something. And hopefully Amy Coney Barrett will come through and pick it up,” she continued.
Here on Planet Earth, the only case the campaign has pending before the Supreme Court pertains to late-arriving mail-in ballots, which aren’t likely to wipe out Biden’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania even if the campaign manages to convince SCOTUS to toss them.
Last night the Republicans in Nevada filed yet another lawsuit challenging the use of machines to verify signatures in Clark County, alleging without evidence “over 3,000 instances of ineligible individuals casting ballots.” And the Trump campaign has filed yet another suit in federal court alleging that the Silver State allowed over “10,000” ineligible voters to cast ballots.
Their main witness is an elderly woman who appeared with Grenell at a press conference yesterday claiming her ballot was stolen, only to have the story be immediately debunked.
Time for a Hail Mary pass.
Well, it can’t hurt. And it’s probably no less effective than this raft of garbage lawsuits. AMEN.
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.