CNN's John Avlon takes a look at the plethora of Trump election lawsuits.
"If you're confused by the lawsuits and lies coming from the Trump campaign and its post-election death throes, then you're not alone," he said.
"It's hard to keep track -- but then, distraction and disinformation has always been part of their plan, possibly more than winning cases in court. Here's the tale of the tape today. Lawyers filing lawsuit after lawsuit on Trump's behalf lost eight of them and dropped entirely another four.
"But hey, no one said overturning an election without evidence would be easy. But because some folks remember the accusations more than the facts, let's set the record straight with Pennsylvania, where Trump said he won the election because 700,000 ballots were not allowed to be viewed in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In fact, in Philly, they livestreamed the counting room to keep conspiracies like that at bay. And when a Trump lawyer admitted to a Bush-appointed judge that they did have a 'nonzero number' of observers in the room, the judge replied, 'I'm sorry, what's the problem then?'
"Another Trump lawyer, seeking to disqualify ballots in Montgomery County, PA, was asked by a judge if he was alleging fraud, he said, 'to my information, no.' We saw the same theme in Michigan where a judge blocked an attempt to stop certification of Biden's win, declaring accusations of widespread election fraud 'incorrect and not credible.' In Arizona, Trump's legal team had a hard time translating an internet conspiracy theory involving Sharpies into a legal case. But we did get this flash from a Trump lawyer.
"This, of course, is not the party line, and they soon dropped the suit. In Wisconsin, an attempt to block a batch of votes was likewise abandoned, while a lack of evidence also doomed a case in Nevada. Now, one hot conspiracy theory falsely links a voting machine company to - wait for it- Venezuela and George Soros, and blames it for mysteriously changing vote totals. That's the rumor Trump's own DHS was trying to debunk when they said there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes or was in any way compromised.
"CNN also looked into claims that 14,000 dead people voted in Michigan. Our fact checkers chose 50 names at random and found a grand total of zero dead people who voted.
"While Trump and his sycophants can lie about anything, lawyers don't have that luxury. Maybe that's why we've seen two law firms bail on the Trump campaign to date, which is not generally a sign of confidence in their client's claims. And it turns out that one of Trump's replacement lawyers already acknowledged Joe Biden president-elect on their website, which is awkward.
"But not as awkward as the facts and math piling up, leaving election lawyer Rick Casen to declare yesterday, 'The president can keep declaring he was won, but there's no plausible way this election gets overturned. We're not talking about three Hail Marys anymore, we're talking done."
"And that's your reality check."
