Trump campaign appeals dismissal of Pennsylvania election challenge

President Trump’s campaign on Sunday filed a notice of appeal after a federal judge dismissed Trump’s attempt to block the certification of votes in Pennsylvania.

Attorneys for the president’s campaign, including Rudy Giuliani, submitted an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit following Judge Matthew Brann’s scathing ruling Saturday rejecting Trump’s case.

Brann, a judge for the U.S. Middle District of Pennsylvania, issued an order permitting Pennsylvania to move forward with certifying its election results and dismissing Trump’s lawsuit that alleged, without evidence, widespread voter fraud. 

Brann said the Trump campaign presented “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” that were “unsupported by evidence.”

“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more,” Brann wrote in the order. 

The president criticized Brann in a tweet late Saturday, vowing to appeal the decision to allow certification to move forward. 

“It’s all a continuation of the never ending Witch Hunt,” Trump tweeted. “Judge Brann, who would not even allow us to present our case or evidence, is a product of Senator Pat ‘No Tariffs’ Toomey of Pennsylvania, no friend of mine, & Obama – No wonder.” 

“WILL APPEAL!” Trump said in another tweet. 

….WILL APPEAL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2020

Trump has contested the outcome of the Keystone State’s presidential election that gave President-elect Joe Biden Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes. It specifically asserted that there were irregularities in the voting process, alleging that mail-in and in-person ballots were treated differently.

Early results on Election Day showed the president with a large lead among in-person voters, but Biden cut into the lead once the state started counting mail-in ballots, leading to his eventual victory. 

The president’s campaign has filed several lawsuits in battleground states challenging the election results and promoting unfounded claims of voter fraud. It has maintained it has evidence of widespread voter fraud in these states but has not released any such information. Judges have thrown out many of the lawsuits.

Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa.) became the fifth Republican senator to congratulate Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on the election win on Saturday after the campaign’s lawsuit was dismissed. The Pennsylvania senator called on Trump to “accept the outcome of the election” and allow for a transition of power. 

“With today’s decision by Judge Matthew Brann, a longtime conservative Republican whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist, to dismiss the Trump campaign’s lawsuit, President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in Pennsylvania,” the senator said in a statement.