US presidential election: who are the star lawyers who are active?

The American elections are definitely an inexhaustible windfall for lawyers. This year, there is a battle in Pennsylvania over “bare ballots,” a poetic phrase for those returned without the special envelope. In North Carolina, lawyers fought over the deadline to count the votes. In a county of Texas, the litigation revolved around the legality of polling stations accessible by car … And yesterday, after the poll, Donald Trump’s lawyers launched a new series of legal actions in the hope of rocking the result of the election. After the ballot box, the battle will therefore move to the courtrooms.

Both camps have mobilized thousands of lawyers nationally and locally, drawn from prestigious firms, Jones Day for Republicans and Perkins Coie, among others, for Democrats.

On Biden’s side, the operation is overseen by Dana Remus, a law professor and legal director of the Obama Foundation. The former president also celebrated the marriage of this one. She is helped by Bob Bauer, a former White House legal adviser under Obama as well. The two have set up a “special litigation” unit with a team of several hundred lawyers, including Marc Elias, a great figure of Democratic lawyers who has worked on several campaigns and does not hesitate to attack Republicans on his Twitter account. There is also Eric Holder, the former justice minister of Barack Obama, responsible for coordinating the various groups involved in the appeals.

Here is Rudy again

Donald Trump, who always favors loyalty, named two of his personal lawyers, Jay Sekulow, who defended him at the time of the impeachment, and the unmistakable Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, known for his statements to cookie cutter and its various compromises. The team also includes William Consovoy, the lawyer who fights to keep the president’s tax sheet from being made public. He was the one who said that the president could not be prosecuted in the performance of his duties even if he shot someone in the street. He and his firm fought to deny the right to vote to former prisoners in Florida. They sued California to block the mailing of a ballot to all voters …

The Republicans’ strategy is clear. “As crazy as it sounds, their goal is to stop the ballot counting,” says Caleb Jackson, a voting rights specialist at the Campaign Legal Center. This battle comes in part from the pandemic. Many states have adopted measures to lengthen the voting time and facilitate the procedure. They have thus changed the rules on how ballots are collected, checked and counted. Donald Trump spent his time insisting that mail ballots arrived after the election (but mailed before) would be fraudulent and that they should be stopped.

Lawyers for President Trump launched some 300 lawsuits long before the election – an unprecedented amount – in a dozen states to challenge voting practices and counting methods, which they said encouraged fraud. And yesterday, after the ballot, they launched a new round of appeal. In Pennsylvania and Michigan, they are calling for an end to the count as long as there are no Republican observers. They also want to recount the ballots in Wisconsin. And they filed an action in the Supreme Court to strike down the Pennsylvania ballots that arrived after November 3. “If we count all the legal ballots, the president wins,” summed up his campaign manager.

“It’s totally absurd. The vast majority of those unaccounted for votes have absolutely no legal issues. Many arrived at the polling station weeks ago, and they were piled up waiting to be processed because states did not allow it to be done before election day, ”observes Edward Foley, professor at Ohio State University. . “There is not a gram of chance that the Supreme Court or any court will invalidate these ballots. ”

“Sow doubt and confusion”

Some of these lawsuits clearly have a political purpose. “In a number of cases, this is more of a way of making noise in the media than realistic legal action,” said Caleb Jackson. “It’s part of a larger Republicans’ strategy that aims to sow doubt and confusion” about the legitimacy of the election.

Obviously, the Democrats are counterattacking to defend these votes. “We have lawyers ready to act and file documents within an hour of a complaint,” says Bob Bauer. We will succeed in repelling all attacks. This is our mission. Trump’s mission is to attack the democratic process and we are committed to defending it. ”

On Tuesday night, the president said in a TV address: “We are going to go to the Supreme Court. We want all votes to be stopped. ”

Everyone remembers the puzzle of the 2000 elections, after which the Supreme Court ultimately decided on the winner. But the circumstances in 2020 look different. First, there are multiple remedies in several states, whereas in 2000 they focused on Florida alone. Second, Democrats are much better prepared for a possible battle. And then, even if it’s too early to predict what will happen, it seems unlikely that the results will be so close that the Supreme Court will have to rule again.

“The Court would have to decide on the 2020 election only in the event of a dispute in a capital state in terms of victory in the electoral college and if this dispute depends on the election,” said Rick Hasen, an expert in electoral laws. “For now, neither of these two conditions is met, but that may change,” he said. If everything is played out in Pennsylvania, the question of the validity of ballots arriving after November 3 may suddenly be crucial.

Trump’s team is preparing for a long-lasting struggle, judging by the email sent to its supporters after the election soliciting donations to “fight” Democrats who want to “steal” the election. Small funny detail, according to a Reuters investigation, some 2,500 lawyers at Jones Day, which advises President Trump, gave over $ 90,000 to Joe Biden during the campaign and only $ 50 to Donald Trump!