Attorney for the President, Rudy Giuliani speaks to the media at a press conference held in the back parking lot of landscaping company on November 7, 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Chris McGrath | Getty Images
President Donald Trump‘s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday asked a judge to let him appear in court for a hearing in a lawsuit that seeks to stop Pennsylvania from certifying its election results showing a projected victory for President-elect Joe Biden.
Giuliani’s last-minute bid to be admitted into the case came after two sets of lawyers for Trump’s reelection campaign quit the case over the past week.
It also came after a federal judge denied a request by a new attorney for the campaign to postpone Tuesday’s hearing, which is set for 1:30 p.m. ET.
A former New York City mayor and federal prosecutor, Giuliani is not currently admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania federal court, so he needs permission from the judge to appear in the case.
Trump last week said that the New York-based Giuliani would lead his campaign’s efforts in multiple states to challenge ballots and reverse Biden’s victory.
Those efforts so far have come to naught, and legal and election analysts have said Trump appears to have little if any chance of winning enough cases, in enough states, and to invalidate enough ballots to win a second term in the White House.
Poll worker Angela Steele mans the check-in desk near rows of empty ballot boxes at the Allegheny County Election Warehouse after the election in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. November 6, 2020.
John Altdorfer | Reuters
A new attorney in the Pennsylvania lawsuit, Marc Scaringi, who is also a talk-radio host, said on his show on Nov. 7 before joining the team that attempts to reverse Biden’s projected electoral victory “will not work.”
That was the same day that NBC News and other media outlets called the national election for Biden, after they projected he would win Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes.
The lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania alleges that a number counties evaluated mail-ballots on an “entirely parallel track to those ballots cast in person.”
It also claims that a number of Democrat-heavy counties illegally reviewed mail-in ballots earlier than they should have, which gave voters there extra time to “cure” problems with their ballots.
On Sunday, the Trump campaign amended its complaint, abandoning a claim that election officials in certain counties had blocked some observers from watching ballots being counted.
Less than a week before Tuesday’s hearing, lawyers on the Trump campaign’s team from Porter Wright Morris & Arthur had withdrawn from the case.
“Plaintiffs and Porter Wright have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if Porter Wright withdraws,” those lawyers said in a court filing.
On Monday, three more lawyers asked the judge to let them leave the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann granted the request for two of them — John Scott and Douglas Hughes, both of whom are based in Texas.
But the judge was silent on the request to withdraw by Linda Kerns, a Philadelphia-based attorney whose practice previously specialized in family law matters.
Scaringi, the attorney who also has a radio show, then joined the Trump campaign’s legal team.
Hours later, Scaringi asked Brann to reschedule Tuesday’s oral arguments, as well as an evidentiary hearing set for Thursday.
“Having only been retained today, Plaintiffs’ new counsel need additional time to adequately prepare this case for the upcoming oral argument and evidentiary hearing,” Scaringi wrote in a court filing.
“Furthermore, this is a case of significant complexity and importance to the people of the United States of America,” Scaringi wrote.
Brann promptly denied the request.
“Counsel for the parties are expected to be prepared for argument and questioning,” the judge wrote in an order Monday night.
