Trump campaign refiles Pennsylvania lawsuit -- but citing Florida state laws
President Donald Trump's most recent lawsuit in Pennsylvania essentially deleted voter fraud claims since there was no proof of voter fraud in the state. The remaining ballots that they were disputing were so few that even if the court overturned all of the ballots, they still couldn't win the state.
But after the Washington Post and others reported that the Trump campaign's legal efforts admitted defeat, the campaign quickly jumped in to refile their fraud claims and demand the court allow the legislature to decide who won.
Reuters reporter Brad Heath tweeted the screen capture of the filing, citing an explanation to "restore claims which were inadvertently" deleted, as well as a few other claims.
"Since the campaign has already amended its complaint once, it needs either consent from the defendants [which it won't get] or leave of court," said Heath. "The Trump campaign's latest lawyers say things got pretty mixed up when its previous lawyers all quit, and 'because of a lack of clear communication ... certain counts were improperly withdrawn.'"
"The Trump campaign also says it's challenging a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that basically rejected its assertions that poll-watchers couldn't watch votes being counted. It says it will do this 'under Bush v. Gore,'" Heath also said, noting it's not clear how that will work.
"The Pennsylvania court was deciding a question of state law; there wasn't a federal-law issue in the case on which a federal court could weigh-in," Heath explained. "Trump's lawyers say they will ask a federal court 'will seek the remedy of Trump being declared the winner of the legal votes cast in the 2000 General Election and, thus, the recipient of Pennsylvania's electors.'"
He noted that in another part of the case, Trump's campaign had until 5 p.m. EST to respond to a motion to dismiss, but they missed the deadline by 10 minutes. They were then deleted.
The Trump campaign also proposed an amended complaint asking the court to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying the election results. Heath said that if the court refuses to do it, they want a ruling saying the results of the 2020 election are "defective" and allow the Republican-led legislature to choose the winner.
In the amended complaint, Heath said that the campaign lawyers updated it to make additional arguments that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court didn't have any authority to decide whether poll-watchers were close enough to 'observe' the counting. Interestingly, that was the one lawsuit that Trump actually won.
The suit isn't likely to go well for the Trump team. It prompted former prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega to ask "who" Trump's team believes "inadvertently" deleted the claims from the lawsuit.
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