RUTHFULLY YOURS

Legacy media are lying when they claim that all of President Trump’s allegations of voter fraud are baseless. I know, because I argued a case on the president’s behalf in federal court in Philadelphia.

At issue was President Trump’s request for an order changing the way Pennsylvania absentee and mail-in ballots are being reviewed at the Philadelphia Convention Center. CNN and others claim he “lost.” That’s false: he won. As I made that argument on behalf of the president’s campaign, I can tell you what really happened.

President Trump went to court about two problems: First, only a handful of Republican observers—substantially fewer than the Democrats had there—were being admitted to the room at the Philadelphia Convention Center where inspections were being conducted. Second, the few who could get in weren’t permitted to get close enough to see what was actually happening. The most important questions all have to ask are: Why all the hiding? What’s being hidden?

At the Convention Center counting location, I personally observed dozens of Trump campaign volunteers being barred from the counting room even though they’d been properly registered as observers. That’s why I urged Pam Bondi and Corey Lewandowski, who were on the scene, to authorize the filing of a request that a federal court order the Board of Elections to stop this nonsense.

More hiding: despite a binding order of the state’s Commonwealth Court, the handful of Republican observers who could get into the room weren’t being allowed up to the barrier set at six feet from the closest tables where work was being done. So even though they were in the room where it was happening, they had no way to tell what was happening. If there’s no fraud, why is the Democrat-controlled Board of Elections unwilling to let people get close enough to actually see what its people are doing?

So on a borrowed laptop at around 2 p.m. on election day, I typed up a very short document to start a federal lawsuit and to request that the federal court intervene to prohibit these unfair practices. At about 4:30 p.m., its filing was authorized by the campaign.

The federal judge ordered a hearing that began at 5:30 p.m. and went for two hours. In open court, the  judge compelled the Board of Elections to agree that the Republicans could have up to 60 representatives in the room. That was a huge victory, not only for Republicans but for anyone who actually wants to have a vote tabulation worthy of belief.

He also compelled the board to agree that all observers, Democrat or Republican, could get up to the six-foot barrier. While the Democrats claimed that of course, of course, they had always been letting people in and letting them up to the barrier, I had a long list of witnesses who were prepared to testify that this was false. The judge told the defendants pointedly that if they didn’t do what they’d promised in his courtroom they would, he had plenty of authority to make them keep their word.

Having secured this agreement from the Board of Elections, the court dismissed the president’s motion for court-ordered relief as moot. Courts often do that when they secure an agreement between the parties. It means the court doesn’t have to issue an order, which would be appealable, granting or denying the motion, and it means the court doesn’t have to write an opinion. What it doesn’t mean is that the request made on behalf of President Trump to stop the election fraud was moot, despite the false spin CNN and other mainstream media put on it. All of this was a victory for President Trump and anyone else who believes in open government.

I’m no longer surprised by anti-Trump non-news coming from the likes of CNN. But I cannot imagine why Pennsylvania Republican leaders have suggested there’s no reason to think that anything wrong or fraudulent is going on in the counting of Pennsylvania’s votes.

If that were true, why in the world would the Democratic-controlled city government be working so hard to keep Republicans out of the room where those votes are being counted? In a world where every car that drives down the street is on video, why isn’t all of this counting being conducted in broad daylight, under watchful eyes? What do they have to hide?

Other people have gathered substantial evidence that there are indeed things to hide, including this video showing, among other things, footage of government officials wearing Joe Biden facemasks filling in blanks in already-submitted mail-in votes. The hearing I attended wasn’t about that, but it was about the conditions that make that possible.

No one who wants a legitimate vote count should be working to keep observers out of the room where the votes are counted. Yet for some reason the City of Philadelphia sent three lawyers, including the city solicitor himself, to a hearing to try to persuade a federal judge that he shouldn’t even bother addressing President Trump’s request.

Fortunately, the federal judge didn’t take that advice, and he forced the Board of Elections to do the right thing. I call that a solid victory for everyone—except for those with something to hide. For some reason, all of this hiding was being done by Democrats, for Biden.