Tag: election

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Trump, in Taped Name, Pressured Georgia Official to ‘Discover’ Votes to Overturn Election

Trump, in Taped Call, Pressured Georgia Official to ‘Find’ Votes to Overturn Election

At another point, when Mr. Trump claimed that a video of the vote count at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta revealed that an employee was guilty of blatant ballot filling, Mr. Raffensperger replied that the video was selectively edited by Mr. Trump’s attorney. Rudolph W. Giuliani and other lawyers.

“They cut and rolled the video and took it out of context,” said Raffensperger. “The events that took place are nowhere near what was projected.”

When Mr Germany told the President that some of the allegations had been examined by both the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI and found to be untrue, Mr Trump replied that the agents were false.

“Then they are incompetent,” he said. “There are only two answers – dishonesty or incompetence.”

Mr Raffensperger said Mr Trump’s allegation that ballot papers were scanned three times was false. “We conducted an audit and conclusively proved that they were not scanned three times,” he told the president.

The president seemed incapable of envisioning a reality in which he would lose Georgia and repeatedly rewound statistics that he said he won the state by “hundreds of thousands of votes”.

“You look at it by rally size, frankly,” said Mr Trump, adding that he wanted to go over some of the numbers. He claimed that 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were “mysteriously thrown into the reels,” a problem he said in Fulton County.

“We think if you check the signatures, a real signature check in Fulton County, you’ll find at least a few hundred thousand forged signatures,” the president said, citing one conspiracy theory after another.

“People have said it was the highest vote ever,” he told Mr. Raffensperger, claiming that the fraud cases were “many, many times” more than Mr. Biden’s profit margin. “The political people said there was no way they could beat me.”

Michael D. Shear reported from Washington and Stephanie Saul from New York.

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Federal Decide Dismisses Election Lawsuit Towards Pence

Federal Judge Dismisses Election Lawsuit Against Pence

WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit cited by President Trump’s allies in Congress aimed at pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to dismiss the election results in the last effort by lawmakers to challenge President-elect Joseph R. , Biden Jr.’s victory hit a blow.

Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle of the Eastern District of Texas ruled that Republican lawmakers, led by Texas Representative Louie Gohmert, lacked the right to sue Mr. Pence on the matter. The lawsuit challenged the more than a hundred-year-old law that governs the process of electoral college to upgrade an otherwise ceremonial role to one that has the power to reject votes for Mr Biden.

As Chairman of the Senate, Mr. Pence has the responsibility of opening and counting the envelopes mailed by each state and reporting their election results when Congress meets on January 6th to confirm Mr. Biden’s victory. Mr Gohmert, along with his colleagues and constituents in Arizona, had hoped that the lawsuit filed on Sunday could force Mr Pence to take on an expanded role, putting pressure on the vice president to invalidate the election results.

But Judge Kernodle, who was appointed by Mr Trump, dashed those hopes on Friday, despite Mr Gohmert saying in an interview with Newsmax that his lawyers would appeal. His decision came a day after the Justice Department asked him to deny the lawsuit. The department also argued that Mr. Gohmert had no authority to sue Mr. Pence for performing the duties set out in the law, but that he should sue Congress, which passed the original law.

The president was unhappy when he learned that the Justice Department was representing Mr Pence in a lawsuit his supporters had filed and he turned to the vice president Friday morning to discuss it, three people briefed on the discussion said .

During their interview, Mr. Trump expressed surprise at the development, despite the Justice Department following due process for Mr. Pence being sued in his official capacity, according to one of the people who were briefed on the discussion. Mr Trump spoke more to advisors than to Mr Pence about his frustrations with the Justice Department involvement.

Mr Trump’s allies in Congress are making a last-minute effort to undermine the election results by objecting to the confirmation of key states’ election results when Congress meets to endorse them. This is the final step in the process to confirm Mr Biden’s victory. Your efforts, led by Mr. Gohmert in the House of Representatives and Josh Hawley of Missouri in the Senate, will force each House to consider the objections for up to two hours, followed by a vote on Mr. Biden’s victory.

With the majority of Republicans in the Senate expecting to ratify the election and the House being controlled by the Democrats, the offer is doomed. But the trial could ultimately put Mr. Pence in the excruciating position of declaring that Mr. Trump lost the election.

Although Senate Republicans have been largely reluctant – and even outright contempt – at the move, lawmakers in the House have rallied to support the effort. In the letter Mr. Gohmert originally submitted to federal court, he indicated that over 140 Republicans in the House intended to object to Mr. Biden’s victory.

Mr Trump has continued to falsely claim that Mr Biden falsely won the election because of widespread electoral fraud, and has called for Republicans in Congress to work to dismiss the results.

However, there was no evidence of widespread inappropriateness, and former Attorney General William P. Barr has acknowledged that the Justice Department has not uncovered any such fraud that altered the outcome.

The Supreme Court and courts in at least eight critical states across the country have also dismissed or dismissed challenges that the Trump campaign has undertaken to dismiss the election results. These challenges have come nowhere near outperforming results in a single state.

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Ben Sasse Slams Republican Effort to Problem Election

Ben Sasse Slams Republican Effort to Challenge Election

Mr Trump has continued to falsely claim that Mr Biden wrongly won the election because of widespread electoral fraud, and has called for Republicans in Congress to work to dismiss the results. Attorney General William P. Barr has acknowledged that the Department of Justice has not uncovered any such fraud that would have altered the outcome, and the Supreme Court as well as courts in at least eight key states across the country have rejected the challenges carried out by the EU or rejected the Trump campaign, to discard the election results. These challenges have come nowhere near outperforming results in a single state.

Even so, there is a significant divide within the party. While a steady stream of House Republicans have expressed their willingness to object to the electoral votes of critical states, Hawley is the first Senator to do so. He hinted on Wednesday that other senators might soon join his efforts, telling reporters, “A number of offices have reached out to ours through staff and said, ‘We’re interested.

He launched a fundraiser on Thursday highlighting his plan. “We have to make sure that one voice means one voice in America,” read the message, which was next to a photo of Mr. Hawley and Mr. Trump. “I plan to object to the results of the electoral college on January 6, but I need your help.”

It is unclear how many – if any – of his Senate colleagues will stand by his side.

But it already creates some sort of test for Republicans and their allies who are forced to take sides and either support Mr Trump or oppose his efforts to overthrow the elections.

His announcement on Wednesday met with a clear lack of enthusiasm in many conservative circles. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority leader, had stopped lawmakers objecting to the results, arguing that a challenge would force Senators to enter the file, either against Mr. Trump or against the will of voters.

At a private conference call with Senate Republicans Thursday, Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, who will retire in 2022, spoke out to demonstrate his “strong” opposition to Mr. Hawley’s plan, a spokesman for Mr. Toomey.

Mr. Hawley’s objection will force the Senate to consider his request for up to two hours, followed by a vote on Mr. Biden’s victory. With every Senate Democrat expected to confirm the election, as well as at least several Republicans, the Senate will likely confirm Mr Biden’s victory. The house, which also has to hold the same vote, is controlled by Democrats, making certification a certainty.

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Trump Allies Eye Lengthy-Shot Election Reversal in Congress

Trump Allies Eye Long-Shot Election Reversal in Congress

Mr. Brooks tried to get support. He met with about half a dozen senators, including Utah’s Mike Lee, and separately with the conservative House Freedom Caucus last week.

“My # 1 goal is to fix a badly flawed American electoral system that is too easy to fraud and steal,” said Brooks. “A possible bonus for achieving this goal is that if you only count legitimate votes from legitimate American citizens and exclude all illegal votes, Donald Trump would officially win the electoral college, as I believe he actually did.”

It remains unclear how broad a coalition could be. More than 60 percent of Republicans in the House of Representatives, including the two top party leaders, joined a legal letter backing the unsuccessful Texas lawsuit and asking the Supreme Court to overturn the election results. But it is one thing to sign a legal mandate and another to officially challenge the outcome on the floor of the house.

Some Republicans, including Representative Scott Perry from Pennsylvania and Representative Matt Gaetz from Florida, have also signaled that they could support an appeal. Mr. Brooks said he had spoken to other interested parties. But prominent allies of the president who have plunged headlong into previous fights, such as representative Jim Jordan from Ohio or even the minority leader of the House of Representatives, representative Kevin McCarthy from California, have so far been publicly noncommittal.

“All eyes are on January 6,” Gaetz said Friday night on Fox News after the Supreme Court dismissed the Texas lawsuit. “I suspect there will be some debate and discourse in Congress as we go through the voter certification process. We still believe there is evidence that needs to be considered. “

Kentucky Republican Mr Paul said he would “wait and see how all legal cases play out” before deciding what to do.

Mr Johnson plans to hold a hearing this week “investigating the irregularities in the 2020 election,” and Ken Starr, the former independent attorney who is a right-wing favorite, and at least two attorneys who stand up for Mr Trump have pronounced introduces. Whether he will question the results on Jan. 6, he told reporters last week, “depends on what we find out.”

Maggie Haberman contributed to the coverage.

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Man Is Arrested in Stabbing at D.C. Election Protest

Man Is Arrested in Stabbing at D.C. Election Protest

Washington, DC authorities said Sunday they had arrested a man in connection with the stabbing of four people on Saturday night when supporters and opponents of President Trump collided with blocks from the White House.

The four were stabbed to death outside a bar on 11th Street and F Street Northwest at around 9 p.m. Saturday, the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement. Washington, 29-year-old Phillip Johnson was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, a police spokeswoman said. According to a police report, he used a knife.

The confrontation was one of several furious encounters in Washington and state capitals on Saturday as supporters of Mr. Trump were outraged by a Supreme Court ruling that further demolished the president’s hopes of dismissing the November election results Counter-protesters clashed.

These confrontations escalated to violence in a number of locations, including Olympia, Washington, where police rioted and one person was shot.

The Washington police incident report on the stabbing in Washington said that officials working on the demonstrations responded to reports of a fight outside Harry’s bar on F Street Northwest, in which they found four people with stab wounds. The Washington Post reported that the bar was used on Saturday as a meeting place for the Proud Boys, a right-wing group known for inciting violence during protests.

The confrontation came after dozen of Mr. Trump’s supporters, many of whom appeared to be members of the Proud Boys, gathered on the street outside Harry’s bar. Some of the Trump supporters shouted and pointed at a black man in dark clothing, standing alone and against a wall, according to a journalist who witnessed the confrontation while covering the protests for the New York Times.

At least three of Trump’s supporters offered to let the man go and pleaded with the others to let him go in peace. After about a minute, when the man hesitated, more protesters came closer and started punching and kicking him, according to video footage of the confrontation shared by the New York Post.

At this point, the man pulled out a knife and started cutting it up as more protesters piled on top of him. The man detached himself twice, but was then grabbed and beaten again. Police intervened after the man was lying face down on the floor. Several protesters shouted that the man had a knife and had stabbed someone. The man’s face was puffy and bloody when the police picked him up.

The victims were conscious and breathing when they were rushed to a hospital, a police department spokeswoman said on Sunday. Douglas Buchanan, a spokesman for DC Fire and Ambulance Services, said Sunday that her injuries were not life threatening.

Police identified the men who had been stabbed to be Franklin Todd Gregory of McMinnville, Tenn .; Corey Owen Nielsen of Robbinsdale, Minn .; Jeremy Bertino of Locust, NC; and Gregory Lyons, whose hometown was not released. Police said Mr. Gregory identified Mr. Johnson as the man who stabbed him.

Mr Johnson could not be reached on Sunday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he was still in custody or whether he had a lawyer.

Minutes before the knife wounds, Mr. Trump supporters tore off a banner from Black Lives Matter and burned it in the street. Videos on social media show this. The flag was removed from outside the Asbury United Methodist Church, one of the oldest black churches in Washington, which has stood on the corner of 11th Street and K Street Northwest since 1836.

The Church’s senior pastor, Rev. Dr. Ianther M. Mills, in a statement, said the scene reminded him of a burning cross.

“We are a resilient people who have trusted in God through slavery and the subway, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement,” she said, “now that we are facing an obvious rise in white supremacy.”

Another video showed a sign with the slogan Black Lives Matter torn down by the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church near the corner of 15th Street and M Street Northwest. A police department spokeswoman said the authorities are aware of the incidents and are investigating them as possible hate crimes.

“DC’s faith-based organizations are at the heart of our community and give us hope in the face of darkness,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement on Facebook. “They embody our DC values ​​of love and inclusivity. An attack on them is an attack on all of us. “

The police department spokeswoman said eight officers were injured during the protests on Sunday. Two of these officers suffered serious, but not life-threatening injuries and were also taken to hospitals, said Buchanan, the fire and rescue service spokesman.

According to a police arrest database, a total of 33 people were arrested in connection with the protests in Washington from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, mainly for various types of assault, including attacks on police officers.

A single shot can be heard in videos of a clash in Olympia, Washington posted on social media as counter-protesters advance against members of a pro-Trump group on Saturday, including a person on a sidewalk saying a great Trump waving flag. After the shot, one of the counter-protesters falls to the ground while others call for help. Another video shows a man with a gun running from the scene and putting on a red hat.

Forest Michael Machala, 25, of Shoreline, Washington, was arrested for first degree assault, said Chris Loftis, a Washington State Patrol spokesman, on Sunday.

The Olympia shots came after Mr. Trump’s supporters and counter-protesters gathered near the state capitol on Saturday afternoon and clashed ahead of the shooting.

Olympia Police said there were four arrests and four officers were injured, according to CBS subsidiary KIRO.

Victor J. Blue, Mike Baker and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed to the coverage.

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Supreme Courtroom rejects Trump backed lawsuit that sought to overturn Biden election victory

Supreme Court rejects Trump backed lawsuit that sought to overturn Biden election victory

United States President Donald Trump looks on during a ceremony to present wrestler Dan Gable with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on December 7, 2020.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

The United States Supreme Court on Friday rejected an offer tabled by Texas and backed by President Donald Trump in an attempt to undo Joe Biden’s election victories in key swing states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The ruling dealt a death blow to Trump’s desperate and unsuccessful efforts to undo Biden’s planned victory at the electoral college. It took three days for voters to cast their ballots in their respective states and for Biden’s victory to be finalized.

Suffrage experts said from the start that the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed. But Trump, who himself had applied to intervene in the case, had hyped Paxton’s lawsuit as “the big one”.

The court on Friday denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to file the lawsuit against the four battlefield states. The judges said Paxton didn’t have reasons to sue the other states over changes they made to their voting procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“The Texas state’s application for permission to file a notice of appeal is denied due to a lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution,” the court said.

“Texas has shown no judicial interest in the way any other state conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as in dispute.”

Trump, who appointed three judges to the nine-member court, had said ahead of the November 3rd election that he believed the Supreme Court would ultimately decide the race.

“I think it is very important that we have nine judges,” Trump said shortly after the death of the liberal judiciary Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September.

Biden spokesman Mike Gwin said in a statement on Friday evening that the court had “decided and quickly rejected the recent attack by Donald Trump and his allies on the democratic process.”

“This is no surprise – dozens of judges, election officials from both parties and Trump’s own attorney general have rejected his baseless attempts to deny that he lost the election,” said Gwin. “The clear and authoritative victory of President-elect Biden will be confirmed by the electoral college on Monday and sworn in on January 20th.”

The Texas lawsuit asked the Supreme Court to invalidate the election results of the four battlefield states by stating that their votes “cannot be counted” in the electoral college.

Biden’s victories in the four states, which together had 62 votes, had brought him over the 270-vote threshold required to secure the presidency. Biden is expected to win 306 votes, compared to 232 for Trump.

If Texas had won the lawsuit, it would have canceled Biden’s victory.

Two of the most conservative Supreme Court justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, said in brief disagreement that they allowed Paxton’s lawsuit to be filed, but added that they would “grant no other relief” requested in the case .

“In my view, there is no discretion to refuse to file a notice of appeal in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction,” Alito wrote in a statement backed by Thomas. “I would therefore grant the request to file the notice of appeal, but would not grant any other relief, and I do not express an opinion on any other subject.”

More than a dozen states in which Trump won the referendum filed briefs in support of Texas’s action. More than 120 Republican members of Congress, including House Minority Chairman Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Filed similar Friend of the Court letters shortly thereafter.

But about two dozen states and territories that Biden had won filed their own pleadings against the Texas appeal.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., In a damning letter from her dear colleague on Friday afternoon, accused the Republicans of supporting the case of “electoral subversion that threatens our democracy”.

“This lawsuit is an act of GOP desperation that violates the principles enshrined in our American democracy,” wrote Pelosi.

“As members of Congress, we take a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution,” her letter said. “The Republicans are undermining the Constitution through their ruthless and fruitless assault on our democracy, which threatens to seriously undermine public confidence in our most sacred democratic institutions and slow our progress on the urgent challenges ahead.”

Rudy Giuliani, the attorney who spearheaded Trump’s efforts to reverse Biden’s victory through legal proceedings, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska who has clashed with Trump, said in a statement that the Supreme Court has finally “closed the book on the nonsense.”

“Since election night, a lot of people have puzzled voters by turning the Kenyan birther guy. ‘Chavez carved the election out of the grave conspiracy theories,’ but any rule of law American should take comfort that the Colonel The court – including all three tips from President Trump – closed the book on the nonsense, “he said.

Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel, who represented her state against Paxton’s lawsuit, said the ruling was “an important reminder that we are a nation of laws, and while some may bow to the wishes of a single person, they will.” Courts don’t do this. “

NBC News legal analyst Benjamin Wittes noted that while Alito and Thomas opposed the decision, they likely would have opposed it on the matter.

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Texas sues 4 battleground states in Supreme Court docket over ‘illegal election outcomes’

Texas sues four battleground states in Supreme Court over 'unlawful election results'

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate the results of the presidential election results in four major swing states that helped defeat Democrat Joe Biden President Donald Trump secure.

The unusual lawsuit, filed directly with the Supreme Court, alleges that “unlawful election results” in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan – all won by Biden – should be declared unconstitutional.

Legal experts were quick to dismiss the case as a political theater with no precedent in American history.

The filing argues that these states used the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to unlawfully change their electoral rules “through executive fiat or amicable lawsuits which weakened the integrity of the ballot papers”.

“All electoral college votes cast by such presidential voters appointed” in these states “cannot be counted,” Texas urges the Supreme Court to rule.

The Lone Star State’s attempt to devalue other states’ electoral votes follows a series of long-term legal challenges with similar goals that have been brought to court by Trump’s campaign and other lawyers. These lawsuits have repeatedly failed to invalidate the ballots cast for Biden.

The allegations in the Texas lawsuit “are false and irresponsible,” Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said in a fiery statement shortly after Paxton announced legal action.

“Texas claims that there are 80,000 forged signatures on postal ballots in Georgia, but they don’t bring up a single person to whom this happened. That’s because it didn’t,” Fuchs said.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel called the suit a “publicity stunt” and “below the dignity” of Paxton’s office. Josh Kaul, the Wisconsin attorney general, said in a statement the case was “really embarrassing.”

Suffrage experts also quickly dismissed the likelihood that the nine Supreme Court justices would open the case. Paul Smith, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who argued over proxy cases in the Supreme Court, said the case was “insane”.

“Pennsylvania and the rest of the world have a whole system of voting through the election – that’s all,” said Smith, who also serves as vice president of litigation and strategy for the Justice Center for Impartial Campaigns. “I don’t think the Supreme Court will be interested.”

The professor added that Texas may have difficulty proving that it has grounds for action that are legally known as “standing”.

“It is completely unprecedented for any state to claim in the Supreme Court that other states’ votes were cast incorrectly – that never happened,” he said. “What is the violation of the state of Texas because Pennsylvania’s votes were cast for Mr. Biden instead of Mr. Trump? There is no connection there.”

Rick Hasen, an electoral law expert at the University of California at Irvine, wrote on his popular legal blog that the lawsuit was “utter rubbish,” and also denied the idea that Texas stood, noting that “it has no say like other states vote for voters. “

Paxton wrote in the letter that Texas stands because of its interest in which party controls the Senate, which it says “represents the states”.

“While Americans are probably more concerned with who is elected president, states have a clear interest in who is elected vice president and who can thus cast the decisive vote in the Senate,” he wrote.

“This violation is particularly acute in 2020, when a Senate majority often maintains a tie for the vice president as the balance between the Georgia elections in January is nearly the same – and may be the same depending on the outcome of the Georgia runoffs.” political parties, “added Paxton.

The lawsuit against the four states ends with a critical deadline in the electoral certification process known as the “Safe Harbor” threshold. Thereafter, Congress is forced to accept the states’ certified results.

Six days later, the electoral college voters will cast their votes, marking Biden’s victory. The lawsuit also calls on the Supreme Court to extend the December 14 deadline “so that these investigations can be completed”.

In most cases, the Supreme Court hears only lower court cases that have been appealed. In cases between two or more states, however, the court originally has jurisdiction. Usually four judges have to agree to hear a case.

The lawsuit comes when Paxton faces a criminal investigation by the FBI into alleged efforts to help a wealthy campaign donor. The investigation was confirmed by The Associated Press after seven senior lawyers in Paxton’s office accused authorities in September that Paxton was guilty of abuse of his office.

All seven have since been fired, on leave or resigned, which has led several of them to file whistleblower lawsuits. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

The case is not the first on election to reach the judges, although the court has not yet made a substantial decision on either side. In another lawsuit that the court may soon weigh, Pennsylvania’s Republican Representative Mike Kelly, an ally of Trump, is challenging virtually all of the state’s postal ballot papers and asking the court to nullify millions of votes.

Biden is expected to win 306 electoral college votes – 36 more than needed to beat Trump, who is said to receive 232 such votes.

But Trump refuses to allow Biden. The president, more than a month after election day, continues to falsely insist that he has won the race while promoting a wide range of unproven conspiracy theories allegedly pointing to election or election fraud.

The president is also pressuring swing state officials to take action to discard the results of their elections. Trump has heavily criticized Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, furiously demanding that he convene a special session of the Peach State Legislature to appoint pro-Trump voters.

Trump has personally reached out to Kemp and Pennsylvania House spokesman Bryan Cutler, according to Washington Post reports. In November, Trump received Michigan Republican lawmakers for a meeting at the White House. These lawmakers said after the event that they had no plans to replace Biden’s voters.

Even ahead of the election, Trump predicted that the Supreme Court would likely rule the results of the race and urged the GOP-controlled Senate to bank Justice Amy Coney Barrett in time.

However, in recent weeks, Trump has admitted that he is unlikely to turn the 2020 election results in court on its head as his legal challenges have stalled.

“Well, the problem is that getting to the Supreme Court is difficult,” Trump told Fox News last month in his first full interview since his November 3rd defeat.

“I have the best lawyers in the Supreme Court, attorneys who want to discuss the case when it gets there. They said, ‘It’s very hard to get a case up there,'” Trump added. “Can you imagine Donald Trump, President of the United States, filing a case and I probably can’t get a case.”