Trump Suffers Another Humiliating Legal Defeat — On Christmas Eve

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign has suffered yet another humiliating post-election defeat — this time, on Christmas Eve, which found a three-judge panel for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals throwing out a lawsuit challenging the election results in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin was among the five states that Trump won in 2016 but lost to President-elect Joe Biden in 2020; the others were Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona. Trump's legal team has been claiming, without evidence, that he was the victim of widespread voter fraud in all of those states.

One judge after another, however, has disagreed, and the 7th Circuit panel saw no reason to believe that Biden didn't win Wisconsin fairly.

"In essence, the judges unanimously ruled that Wisconsin's election was conducted correctly and that Trump waited too long to complain about the procedures employed," according to Law & Crime reporter Aaron Keller.

The 7th Circuit panel consisted of three judges who were appointed by Republican presidents. While the 84-year-old Judge Joel Flaum was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, Judge Ilana Rovner was an appointee of President George H.W. Bush. And Judge Michael Y. Scudder was appointed by Trump himself.

Flaum, Rovner and Scudder, in their Donald J. Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission ruling, wrote, "We agree that Wisconsin lawfully appointed its electors in the manner directed by its legislature and add that the president's claim also fails because of the unreasonable delay that accompanied the challenges the president now wishes to advance against Wisconsin's election procedures."

According to Keller, "Trump's complaint was rooted in the Electors Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That clause allows each state's legislature to choose how to appoint presidential electors. The 7th Circuit rubbished Trump's moaning and groaning about how the legislature delegated the specifics to various state officials. Trump's lawyers argued those officials overstepped the authority granted to them and conducted an out-of-control election."