The law firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur has now dropped out of a key election-related case that they filed on behalf of the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania, where the firm alleged that “irregularities” plagued the electoral process. The Trump campaign has targeted the election results in a slew of swing states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, and elsewhere, with the president alleging all along the way that some kind of massive fraud plagued the recent election. Meaningful evidence supporting his claim has yet to emerge (and no doubt will never emerge, since the claim of fraud isn’t based on legitimate systematic concerns in the first place).
In a federal court filing in Pennsylvania, Porter Wright said that the firm and Trump campaign “reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if Porter Wright withdraws.” The firm’s withdrawal from the case came shortly after The New York Times published an article detailing what the publication summarized as “internal tensions at the firm about its work for Mr. Trump’s campaign in Pennsylvania.” According to the Times, some Porter Wright “employees said they were concerned that the firm was being used to undercut the integrity of the electoral process” — which was, in fact, taking place.
Republicans have already paid Porter Wright a total of at least $727,000. The firm has previously filed “a number of other actions in Pennsylvania courts challenging aspects of the state’s voting process,” the Times explains, and whether the firm would stay on those other cases wasn’t immediately apparent. In a recent statement, Porter Wright acknowledged that they sometimes take on “controversial cases,” and they said that they “expect criticism in such instances, and… affirm the right of all individuals to express concern and disagreement.” In the touchstone Pennsylvania case that they’ve now withdrawn from, that “disagreement” came in the form of a motion from the Democratic National Committee to dismiss the case.
Across the country, the allegations of widespread fraud that have been trumpeted by Trump and his allies have consistently come up short. The Trump campaign has yet to prove that there was any kind of fraud conspiracy targeting the president’s re-election chances. Sure, they’ve waved affidavits around, and they’ve presented bombastic claims — like the frankly ludicrous idea that a van marked with Biden/ Harris signage was used for faking legitimate ballots in Nevada — but when it’s come time to produce actual tangible evidence for their claims, they’ve failed. Conjecture is not evidence of fraud that will stand up in court, it turns out.
No matter the Trump team’s consistent failure to prove the widespread fraud that they’ve alleged plagued the election, the president has been keeping up with his ludicrous claims.
He has repeatedly claimed that he won the election, which just isn’t true, and this week, he went a bit further, trumpeting a One America News Network report on Twitter that claimed that millions of Trump votes were “deleted.” This alleged mass deletion did not take place, and the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that it did not take place — but it’s not as though Trump retracted his claim.
