The Electoral College on Monday cast its votes for President-elect Joe Biden, but for President Trump, the war for the White House continues apace.
The president, after receiving a major loss at the Supreme Court Friday, told Fox News in an interview aired Sunday that he planned to move forward with a number of other election challenges at the local level, where he claimed state Democrats “outsmarted” state Republicans with a “rigged election.”
“It’s not over,” he said. “We’ll keep going, and we’re going to continue to go forward.”
“We have numerous local cases,” he added, pointing to a case then before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That case, in which the Trump legal team alleged that hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots had been cast illegally, fell apart Monday when the court tossed it out, along with another election challenge filed by the state Republican Party.
But a loss in the Electoral College, the dead end at the Supreme Court, and the setbacks in state courts leave Trump’s efforts undeterred, said Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign. Pointing to Jan. 6, this election cycle’s “date of ultimate significance,” when Congress certifies the Electoral College’s votes, Ellis told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s fight is still very much alive.
“President Trump has every right, and, in fact, an obligation to every American voter to continue election integrity efforts to ensure that truth and the Constitutional process — not corruption — prevails,” Ellis said, adding that between Tuesday and the beginning of January, state legislatures have “more than enough time” to recall their delegates’ votes and restore “election integrity.”
Ellis, like Trump, pointed to litigation in a number of states where Trump has filed new suits alleging massive fraud.
In the most recent of these cases, brought forward Monday in New Mexico, as the college was convening, Trump alleged that election officials used the pandemic as a justification for flouting state laws regarding absentee ballots in a way that “directly violated the Constitution.” The case, similar to many of the Trump team’s other legal challenges, met skepticism from legal experts.
“Trump lost New Mexico by 100,000 votes — a margin of 11 (eleven) percent,” conservative lawyer Ed Whelan wrote on Twitter. “What conceivable purpose is served by filing a lawsuit 41 days after the election?”
But Trump allies claim that the president still can pull out a win. Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser, on Monday said that Trump has selected an “alternate” set of electors to send their votes to Congress for certification.
“This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open,” he said, pointing to the open state-level challenges. “If we win these cases in the courts, that we can direct that the alternate state of electors be certified.”
Miller also pointed beyond the Jan. 6 date of ultimate significance and said that, in his mind, the only cutoff date for Trump’s chances at the presidency is Jan. 20 at noon, when Biden is inaugurated.
“So, we have more than enough time to right the wrong of this fraudulent election result and certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election,” he said.
Ellis and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s top legal adviser, made similar claims after the Supreme Court last week dealt Trump a blow in an election challenge raised by Pennsylvania Republicans.
