WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and 17 U.S. states on Wednesday threw their support behind a long-shot lawsuit by Texas seeking to overturn his election loss by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the voting results in four states.
Trump, defeated by President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election, filed a motion with the court asking the nine justices to let him intervene and become a plaintiff in the suit filed on Tuesday by Republican-governed Texas against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
If the justices let Trump join the lawsuit, it would create the extraordinary circumstance of a sitting U.S. president asking the top American court to decide that the millions of votes cast in the four states did not count. The Republican president lost to Biden in the four election battleground states after winning them in the 2016 election.
Writing on Twitter, Trump said, “This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”
In a separate brief, lawyers for 17 states led by Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt also urged the justices to hear the case.
Election law experts have said the Texas lawsuit stands little chance of success and lacks legal merit.
The lawsuit, the latest in a series of election challenges brought by Trump’s campaign and supporters that so far have failed in numerous courts, was brought by Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas and an ally of the president.
In addition to Missouri, the states joining Texas were: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia. All of the states were represented by Republican officials in the filing. All but three of the states have Republican governors.
Trump has falsely claimed he won re-election and has made baseless allegations of widespread voting fraud. Election officials at the state level have said they have found no evidence of such fraud.
Officials from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have called the lawsuit a reckless attack on democracy. It was filed directly with the Supreme Court rather than with a lower court, as is permitted for certain litigation between states.
The New York Times, quoting an unnamed source familiar with the discussion, reported that Trump has asked Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to argue the case if the Supreme Court agrees to hear it. (Reuters)
