‘Beyond embarrassment’, legal experts say of Trump and Giuliani’s mediocre court efforts



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Rudy Giuliani was brought in to lead a “elite strike force“lawyers to guide President Donald Trump’s legal challenges to the 2020 election, but their efforts have been” dysfunctional “and” embarrassing, “based on” unsubstantiated evidence “and” extravagant claims, “said legal experts at NBC News.

“It’s beyond embarrassment,” attorney Glenn Kirschner said. “He’s both a really poor lawyer and he has the worst possible motive behind it. It’s all in the name of overthrowing the will of the American voter.”

Election lawyer Matthew Sanderson compared Giuliani unfavorably to James Baker, who led George W. Bush’s legal effort in the 2000 presidential election.

“It’s like Bush versus Gore, but replace James Baker with the editor of a QAnon subredditt,” he said. “He’s not a competent lawyer. There are strategic errors, typographical errors – all kinds of mistakes you can make in a case.”

“This is such a dysfunctional litigation strategy as I have ever seen,” Sanderson added.

On Monday, the campaign filed its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling dismissing the campaign’s trial in Pennsylvania challenging some mail-in votes.

The appeal lamented the judge in the case, Matthew Brann, “misinterpreted the appeal sought. The Campaign is not seeking to deprive 6.8 million Pennsylvanians,” as the judge wrote in his scathing decision – and Giuliani admitted it during a hearing last week.

The call says the campaign simply wanted to put aside some ballots it said might be flawed – and then notes that one of the remedies they are looking for is “an order that the election results Presidential General of 2020 are flawed, which would allow the Pennsylvania General Assembly to choose Pennsylvania voters “- in other words, which would deprive 6.8 million Pennsylvanians by rejecting their votes.

The filing at one point referred to the ballots as “ballets,” and another of the campaign filings earlier today referred to “Presidential Donald J. Trump” instead of president.

This earlier filing – which stated that the campaign was only appealing part of Brann’s order, but then added that it could appeal other parts of the order – led to the confusion of others. defendants in the case, who said it was inappropriate and that they couldn’t figure out exactly what. the countryside was looking.

It was also not the first such filing since Trump appointed Giuliani as his senior lawyer. Earlier in the same Pennsylvania case, Giuliani sought to add arguments his predecessors had abandoned, likely because they lacked the evidence to back up their claims. “The lawyers thought they were the losers,” Sanderson said.

Also on Monday, the campaign lost another lawsuit in Pennsylvania state court – the latest in a string of dozens of legal losses in six swing states since the election, most of which were started by Giuliani’s predecessors. .

“I don’t think a team of lawyers can save this case. Election litigation is not designed to overturn tens of thousands of votes. It just doesn’t happen. But even with this caveat, this strategy was not executed well, “Sanderson said.

He noted that Giuliani appeared to struggle with certain legal terms when he appeared in court last week, and his exaggerated allegations of a massive nationwide voter fraud scheme did not help his credibility.

Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center’s Voting and Election Rights Program, said Giuliani’s efforts are not aimed at winning court challenges – they are designed to bolster Trump’s attacks on the democratic process.

“I think it’s a strategy of trying to whistle your base” by attacking minority voters in Democratic strongholds, she said. “It is about belittling the process of peaceful resolution of our political differences and casting doubt on the outcome of the election of which he is not the winner.”

“This is a pernicious and problematic attempt to disrupt our democratic processes,” Pérez said, adding that the legal campaign was full of “unsubstantiated allegations, inadequate evidence and extravagant allegations.”

Some of those claims have apparently even become too much for the president – he fired lawyer Sidney Powell from his team over the weekend after she suggested Republicans had taken rewards for arranging the election in Georgia. This is where two seats that will determine control of the US Senate stand to be won in the second round of elections in January.

Giuliani had made similar claims to some of Powell’s, but never accused any Republican of wrongdoing.

A source close to Trump’s thought told NBC News on Monday that the president was unhappy with Powell and Giuliani’s over-the-top performances at a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters last week, where the two were sharing theories of the baseless plot about the election. The source said Trump feared his team was made up of “crazy people who make him look bad.”

Pérez called Giuliani’s variety of conspiracy allegations “the legal equivalent of jumping the shark.”

“All of this will eventually fail, but it will always be damaging,” she said.

Kirschner, a legal analyst for NBC News, said: “It pisses me off to hear lawyers and advocates for Donald Trump say, ‘You have every right to bring these cases.’ Actually no. You have every right to present a winning case. You do not have the right to file a frivolous complaint for purposes other than winning a lawsuit, such as trying to undermine public confidence in elections. “



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