President Trump announced Wednesday that he will join in Texas’ lawsuit at the Supreme Court seeking to block four swing states from casting their electoral votes for presumptive President-elect Joseph R. Biden.
“We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”
The president called Rep. Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, on Wednesday to praise his effort to recruit other GOP lawmakers to sign onto a “friend of the court” legal brief in the Texas case.
“He specifically asked me to contact all Republican members of the House and Senate today, and request that all join on to our brief,” Mr. Johnson said in an email to the House GOP. “He said he will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, petitioned the high court this week to invalidate the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which were won by Mr. Biden. The complaint argues that those states expanded mail-in voting options illegally because their legislatures never approved the action.
Mr. Paxton wants the Supreme Court to order the states to choose their presidential electors in their legislatures, all of which are controlled by Republicans.
The high court on Tuesday rejected, without comment, a request by Pennsylvania Republicans to reverse the state’s certification of its election results.
Mr. Trump said Wednesday that the complaint filed by Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania “was not my case.”
“The case that everyone has been waiting for is the State’s case with Texas and numerous others joining,” Mr. Trump said. “It is very strong, ALL CRITERIA MET. How can you have a presidency when a vast majority think the election was RIGGED?”
The justices set a deadline for the four battleground states to respond to Texas’ complaint by Thursday afternoon.
Other red states expressed interest in the legal challenge.
Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall said if the court grants the Texas case, that will determine whether Alabama gets involved.
Jeff Landry, the attorney general for Louisiana, made a bolder statement, saying the high court should hear the case.
“Louisiana citizens are damaged if elections in other states were conducted outside the confines of the Constitution while we obeyed the rules,” he said.
In an email obtained by CNN, Mr. Johnson told GOP colleagues that the Texas case could be their “last opportunity” to voice their concerns about the election.
“The simple objective of our brief is to affirm for the court (and our constituents back home) our serious concerns with the integrity of our election system,” he said. “We are not seeking to independently litigate the particular allegations of fraud in our brief. … We will merely state our belief that the broad scope of the various allegations and irregularities in the subject states merits careful, timely review by the Supreme Court.”
• Alex Swoyer contributed to this report.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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