Attorneys general in three of the battleground states that were targeted amid a brazen and increasingly desperate lawsuit out of Texas to wage war on American democracy by challenging election results in their states, expressed elation on Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court shot down the effort.
“We have a court of law that has seen through what this President is trying to do in this country and instead of siding with him, the court sided with the rule of law,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Friday, hailing the Supreme Court’s rejection of the farfetched lawsuit aimed at tossing out millions of votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia.
The comments come after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday said that Texas did not meet the procedural thresholds that would warrant the court’s review of a Trump-friendly lawsuit that sought to challenge election results in the four key swing states won by President-elect Joe Biden.
Officials in each of the four battleground states targeted by the lawsuit issued scathing briefs at the Supreme Court on Thursday, with Pennsylvania officials calling the effort a “seditious abuse of the judicial process.”
The high court said in unsigned order on Friday that Texas lacked standing and had “not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections,” after Texas sought to stop those states from casting their electoral votes for Biden and instead to shift the selection of electors to the states’ GOP-controlled legislatures.
Shapiro said on Friday that while he was “pleased” at the decision, he was also troubled by the premise of the effort — backed by the Trump campaign, 18 attorneys general and more than 100 GOP members of Congress — and was baffled by how many had “jumped so quickly on a junk law suit.”
“We have a court of law that has seen through what this President is trying to do in this country and instead of siding with him, the court sided with the rule of law.”
– Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro on the Supreme Court rejecting GOP bid to overturn the election. pic.twitter.com/VwHT2qS7N9
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) December 12, 2020
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) was pointed in his criticism as he celebrated the court’s rejection of the suit on Friday. The Wisconsin official appeared to take jabs at GOP leaders who had targeted elections in his state when he tweeted that a “troublingly large number” of Republicans had sought to seize power from voters.
I’m very happy that the U.S. Supreme Court swiftly rejected the request of Texas’s AG, the President, and a troublingly large number of Republican AGs and members of Congress to take power away from millions of voters and give it to politicians.
— Attorney General Josh Kaul (@WisDOJ) December 12, 2020
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) on Friday who recently compared Trump’s post-election effort to swindle votes to a “‘Friday the 13th’ movie,” implied that the decision was obvious after claims in dozens of court cases preceding the Texas lawsuit that had alleged elections in her state and others had not followed federal laws had been repeatedly ruled as “without merit.”
“Whether it’s state or federal court, whether they were judges that were appointed by Democrats or judges that were appointed by Republicans, they all found these lawsuits were without merit,” Nessel told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi during an interview on Friday night, lauding the Supreme Court’s decision.
Nessel’s comments come after she issued a statement on Friday saying the Supreme Court’s order was a reminder that “though some may bend to the desire of a single individual, the courts will not.” In the statement she urged Americans to “move forward” as united states rather than divisive political factions in spite of the ongoing and baseless attacks on democracy by President Trump and his GOP allies.
The White House, angered by the majority ruling, immediately began flooding conservative news networks with a counter narrative.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany accused the high court of missing an opportunity to defend the Constitution.
“They dodged. They hid behind procedure and they refused to use their authority to enforce the Constitution,” McEnany told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Friday.
Although Trump expressed disappointment with the majority ruling on a case he once called “the big one,” he tweeted early Saturday that he had “JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!”
Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani voiced a similar sentiment, telling Newsmax in an interview on Friday that the gambit was not over.
“We’re not finished, believe me,” Giuliani said.
