“This court has no authority to violate the Constitution,” Judge Matthew Bran of the US District Court in Central District, Pennsylvania, wrote Saturday in a failed ruling, hours after the final round of litigation in the case came to court. The judge strongly rejected the Trump campaign’s bid to get rid of the Pennsylvania vote, stating that Biden had won the state and that the results would be certified by state officials on Monday. Biden has a margin of more than 81,000 votes in the state.
“In the United States of America, this cannot justify denying a single voter the right to vote, let alone all voters in the sixth most populous state. Our people, our laws and our institutions demand more,” the judge wrote. “Essentially, the plaintiffs failed to shoulder the burden of filing a claim on which relief could be granted.”
But Bran, a well-known Pennsylvania Republican, refused.
Shortly after the resolution was passed, Republican Senator Pat Tome of Pennsylvania congratulated Biden as the president-elect, away from party leaders and the vast majority of Republicans in Congress who continue to support Trump’s efforts to challenge the results.
This was the last major issue seeking to exclude or block enough votes that could cause a major country to swing in favor of Trump, and Bran’s decision on Saturday is at least the 30th loss or withdrawal of a cause from the Trump campaign and its allies since the election. day. There were only two wins in court for the Republicans, about very few votes.
“The plaintiffs are asking this court to deny nearly seven million voters the right to vote. This court has not been able to find any case in which the plaintiff sought such a radical remedy in challenging the elections, in terms of the sheer volume of votes required to be annulled,” Bran wrote Saturday. .
In this case, Trump’s legal team led by Giuliani attempted to claim a violation of the equal protection rights of two Pennsylvania voters because the state allowed counties to decide whether voters could fix absentee ballots that were sent out with technical problems. In the lawsuit, the two voters said that in their county, they were not permitted to “process” their ballot papers, and thus their ballot papers were rejected, while other counties, such as the densely populated Democratic County of Philadelphia, allowed voters to “process” absentee ballots. They contended that the discrepancy meant that the results of the entire Pennsylvania state election should be blocked by court order, which in theory would deprive Biden of the state’s 20 Electoral College votes.
Bran described the legal rationale behind the Trump campaign’s equal protection claim as a “Frankenstein monster.”
“The response to invalid ballot papers is not the invalidation of millions of others,” Bran wrote.
Bran also blamed the Trump campaign for not presenting any realistic evidence of voter fraud or other allegations – evidence that Giuliani and Trump’s supporters have repeatedly said it is under preparation but never materialized. Multiple state election officials as well as judges said there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 elections.
Giuliani, who looked into the case at the last minute before a hearing on Tuesday before Bran, was widely criticized for ignoring legal reasoning, leading a team that made dirty mistakes in its files, and for making illogical and unfounded allegations of conspiracy. Against Trump in cities with democratic leanings.
“One might expect that in pursuing this astonishing outcome, the plaintiff would come armed with overwhelmingly convincing legal arguments and realistic proof of rampant corruption, so that this court would have no choice but to grant the proposed injunctive relief, unfortunately despite the impact on such a large group of citizens. But this did not happen. ” “Instead, this court was presented with tense, unfounded legal arguments and speculative accusations, unsupported in the spoken complaint and not supported by evidence.”
The counties in the state are due to certify their election results on Monday.
The judge said that any further consideration of the matter “would unnecessarily delay the resolution of cases” with regard to testimony, and closed the case. His order on Saturday indicates that the Trump campaign cannot attempt to re-feature their claims in a reconfigured version of the lawsuit.
The Trump campaign said, on Saturday evening, that they would quickly appeal Bran’s ruling, with the intention of referring the case to the US Supreme Court.
Tommy has emerged as a rare Republican voice yet admitting that Trump’s legal avenues are over.
With the decision today made by Judge Matthew Bran, a longtime conservative Republican who I know is a fair and impartial lawman, to dismiss the Trump campaign lawsuit, President Trump has exhausted all reasonable legal options to challenge the outcome of the presidential race in Pennsylvania, the Republican senator said in a statement “.
“These developments, along with results in the rest of the nation, confirm that Joe Biden will win the 2020 elections and become the 46th President of the United States.”
Biden spokesman Mike Gwen praised the decision to dismiss the lawsuit.
“The judge’s verdict couldn’t be clearer: Our people, our laws and our institutions demand more – and our country will not tolerate Trump’s attempt to reverse the election results that he lost decisively,” Gwen said in a statement.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro also praised the decision in a statement Saturday evening. “These allegations are unfounded from the beginning and for one audience. The will of the people will prevail. These baseless lawsuits must be ended,” he said.
This story has been updated.
Kelly Mina and Arlit Sainz contributed to this report.
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