Mitchell says, “if we can keep them from stealing it, I think we have a good chance to win.”
The New York Times reports:
At least three dozen lawyers and law firms that advanced Donald J. Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election are now working for Republican candidates, parties and other groups, filing lawsuits and other complaints that could lay the groundwork for challenging the results of midterm elections, according to a New York Times analysis of campaign finance records and legal filings.
Though the 2020 legal push failed, with just one victory out of more than 60 lawsuits, scores of lawyers behind it have continued to work on election litigation.
That includes partners at large law firms like Consovoy McCarthy and Snell & Wilmer, which filed challenges shortly after Mr. Trump’s defeat and dropped them within weeks. But it also includes lawyers who for months argued cases based on groundless allegations and dubious legal theories, giving Mr. Trump’s false claims a veneer of legitimacy and propelling a swirl of misinformation about elections.
On that list are Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman, two lawyers who helped devise Mr. Trump’s legal strategy in 2020 and are now mobilizing activists to hunt for evidence of fraud in the midterm count. Lawyers with the Thomas More Society, a conservative legal group that tried to push the so-called fake electors proposal through the courts after the 2020 election, have recently filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania disputing how officials handle absentee ballots.
In Michigan, Erick Kaardal, another lawyer with the group, told a group of right-wing organizers in late October that he was already preparing to challenge the results if the Republican candidate for governor, Tudor Dixon, loses narrowly to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.
“Are we going to be ready if they rigged the election so Tudor loses a close race?” Mr. Kaardal said, according to an audio recording of the call obtained by The New York Times. “And are we going to be ready to bring those cases into court, bring those facts, that investigation into court, that would require it to be redone, right? I mean that’s really what it’s about. If election official illegalities and irregularities cast doubt on a close election result, then the Michigan election has to be redone.”
Election lawyers and administrators say they fear 2020 may have ushered in a sea change in election law. Previously, campaigns and parties challenged election rules before Election Day and, typically, accepted a court’s ruling and the results of the vote. But after many of Mr. Trump’s pre-election lawsuits failed and he lost the election, his allies returned to similar legal arguments — now citing falsehoods, rumors and exaggerations as evidence — to claim that all votes were fraudulent.
A big part of the plan as well:
This is one of the reasons we are seeing so many Republican polls out there flooding the zone with great news for them. They are setting up the expectation that Democrats can’t possibly win.
It’s not true. The polls are very tight and Dems could very well win races that Republicans have been told they can’t lose. And that’s where the lawyers will come in.
Buckle up.