Look, it hasn’t been a pleasant experience watching the Trump legal team and its allies lead the offensive regarding the avalanche of allegations concerning voter irregularities and fraud. You’re never going to convince me Joe Biden won fair and square, but the effort to prove voter fraud has been a mess. It’s a high bar to convince a judge that ballots should be tossed. It should be—and for the most part, the Trump team has not been successful…until now. This week, the Trump campaign scored a huge win in Nevada where they will be allowed to present evidence of fraud and make their case conceding shoddy ballots. Will it be enough? Will it meet the threshold? We shall see.
Cortney wrote about Sidney Powell’s solo legal effort. She’s been pretty much cast out of the Trump orbit after making some pretty serious allegations, but then not really backing it up with solid evidence. Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh have called her out on it, noting that you cannot hold a press conference, say you have bombshell evidence, and then never present it. It looks bad. It makes the legal effort look like a clown show. Despite the bumps in the road, the allegations are real and not some acid-addled nonsense like Russian collusion. The problem is that as of now, in the absence of evidence that leads to tossing certain ballots, Joe Biden has the upper hand. It’s not what you know. It’s what you can prove, and the Trump effort has had a hard go of it trying to make their case. Time is the most precious resource. It goes double in politics—and it’s running out quickly.
Trump legal adviser Harmeet Dhillon looked at Powell’s legal challenge and went on a lengthy Twitter thread zeroing in on some of the most serious allegations. Powell asserts again that Dominion systems can be easily hacked, which the company has denied. Dhillon noted that if successful, Powell’s legal challenge could alter the election, given how small the margin of victory is in some states. She added that maybe zeroing in on a lesser-known part of the alleged voter irregularities might do better in the courts. Lesser known, but still serious.
1/ Ok I’ve read the lawsuit filed by Sidney Powell’s organization. It contains many allegations familiar to those following these legal challenges, with two big themes: 1) numerous irregularities in vote-counting based on ad hoc law/procedure changes... https://t.co/B8N0QTsWVx
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 26, 2020
2/ including putting ballots in the wrong stacks en masse, pre-printed ballots that were “pristine” and unlined; blocking Republican observers from vote-tabulation tables; counting votes after the so-called “pipe burst” election night even though there were no Rep. observers.../
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 26, 2020
3/ And more... And the second big theme is that the Dominion voting machines are easily hackable and experts have written scripts to show how one can manually manipulate vote tallies, alter setting so as to put more ballots into a “question” pile and then just delete them...
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 26, 2020
4/ These are serious allegations, and maybe the evidence (some of it filed and some of it under seal provisionally) will persuade. Either of these big themes would be enough to change the election results given the narrow margin for Biden. To me, the easiest way to reach that...
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 26, 2020
5/ Goal is something much simpler alleged in the complaint at para. 121: That thousands of specific, identifiable voters, cast ballots after they moved out of state as evidenced in their registration in a national database, and may even have cast votes in their new states also — pic.twitter.com/sBJRIvhh7z
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 26, 2020
6/ which can easily be checked against the other state’s records. This accounts for thousands of votes. The other category @MattBraynard has researched & documented, is thousands of identifiable, specific registrations at fraudulent addresses such as P.O. Boxes, non-residential/ pic.twitter.com/UF3fUvqvlk
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 26, 2020
7/ etc. — These seem to be specific and of a sufficient volume that their disqualification would affect the outcome of the election. I think this simple tack - much easier to grasp and prove than the more complicated theories — is compelling. To critics who say this is too late,
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 26, 2020
8/ it really isn’t. How are you supposed to allege that someone cast a ballot from a fraudulent registration address or after moving, before the election? This is something that can only be checked after the votes are cast and tallied, particularly where last-minute registrations
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) November 26, 2020
“These are serious allegations, and maybe the evidence (some of it filed and some of it under seal provisionally) will persuade. Either of these big themes would be enough to change the election results given the narrow margin for Biden,” wrote Dhillon.
“To me, the easiest way to reach that goal is something much simpler alleged in the complaint at paragraph 121: That thousands of specific, identifiable voters, cast ballots after they moved out of state as evidenced in their registration in a national database, and may even have cast votes in their new states also which can easily be checked against the other state’s records,” she added.
That’s thousands of votes right there.
“These seem to be specific and of a sufficient volume that their disqualification would affect the outcome of the election,” Dhillon said.
It ain't over til' it's over, right. We've been disappointed pervasively on the legal front, but this looks like it's the last stand here. Let's see how this all plays out. Either way, Trump isn't going away regarding the mark he has left on the GOP.
Trumpism is here to stay.