More Legal Follies

I read all of Trump's ongoing lawsuits challenging the election results. 16 total. They are not going well because the facts are weak and the law isn't on their side. https://t.co/QjXBZdBwMV

— Emily Bazelon (@emilybazelon) November 14, 2020

I'm a yellow-dog Democrat, but if, when I was practicing law, the Trump campaign had approached me about handling an election challenge, I would have considered it. Money, after all, and litigation; and every client is entitled to representation. I wouldn't have been asked because those cases go to firms associated with the parties. I knew a firm in Austin, highly respected, that had ties going back to LBJ. A very Democratic firm, but when I was practicing they had seen the writing on the wall and were shifting to accomodate the Republicans on the rise in Texas. Lawyers have to be that way, to some degree. Civil litigation lawyers no more than criminal defense lawyers, have to represent clients they may not always agree with. But when I practiced family law I wouldn’t represent a wife beater or a child-molester; there are reasonable limits. There are also legal ones. If in my hypothetical I was asked to lead an election suit on the evidence that has seen 20 such suits now tossed out, I wouldn't have done it, no matter how good the money. Lawyers have an obligation not to take their clients to court on no legal grounds at all. It can lead to disciplinary action, and worse, it abuses the legal system. Trump and his campaign are entitled to counsel; but his counsel is entitled to refuse to take meritless claims into court and waste everyone's time. It's an abuse of process, and the lawyers who will do it, mark themselves as people who shouldn't be lawyers. It’s worth noting that Federal court is a separate beast from state courts. I am, for example, licensed in Texas. That means I can represent a client in any court in Texas. I used to be licensed in the Western District of Texas, Federal Court (it lapsed, nothing more dramatic than that). Had I taken just a few meritless cases to a court in that district, I'd have lost that license. Federal courts keep a tight rein on attorneys allowed to practice before them. It's a pity state courts don't do a better job of that. Then again, doctors don't lose their medical license because of a few malpractice cases lost, either. The regulation of the professions is hardly a perfect system, which is how they are, indeed, a conspiracy against the laity. But back to the tweet above, via this tweet:

Many of the court cases being filed all over the Country are not ours, but rather those of people that have seen horrible abuses. Our big cases showing the unconstitutionality of the 2020 Election, & the outrage of things that were done to change the outcome, will soon be filed!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2020

Huh? Here are the names of the cases mentioned in the Bazelon article:

Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Benson

Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Benson

Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Bucks County Board of Elections

Donald J. Trump for President v. Boockvar

Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Montgomery County Board of Elections

Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. et al v. Boockvar et al

Donald J. Trump for President Inc. v. Hobbs

In re: enforcement of election laws

Those are simply cases where the campaign is clearly a party to the lawsuit.  There are also the cases where Bazelon indicates some involvement by the campaign, even if they are not a named party in the style.

In re: Canvass of Absentee and Mail-In Ballots of Nov. 3, 2020, General Election: this was an appeal to the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia of a decision by the Philadelphia County Board of Elections.  The appeal was made on behalf of a voter by the Trump Campaign.

Brooks v. Mahoney

Stokke v. Cegavske

Pirkle v. Wolf

That's 12 out of the 16 Bazelon lists.  I guess in Trump math that still isn't a majority. As for the "big cases," I'm sure Trump is thinking of Giuliani's threat of a "nation wide lawsuit," something that is literally a legal impossibility (is Giuliani really going to file suits in 50 states?  Or try to consolidate suits against the election in all 50 states into one federal suit?  There is no concept of this that isn't impossible to imagine, and simultaneously laughably absurd.)  22 more days of this nonsense.  I expect Trump will have decamped to Mar-A-Lago by December 9, never to be seen again (except on Twitter).

I was through with this and had it scheduled, but Trump won’t leave well enough alone.

He's tweeting this as his campaign just filed a revised lawsuit that scrapped the very allegations he's making here about observers in PA pic.twitter.com/cvqKLfJqT1

— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) November 16, 2020

His tweets rehash everything he's alleged (Texas has 254 counties which each choose their voting methods. You can’t speak of Texas as a monolith on the matter of voting devices.), and all of it as contrary to reality as his assertions about the lawsuits. Apparently the election is unconstitutional because he lost. He’s going to be very disappointed on December 8 when it’s clear the system doesn’t work that way.