President Donald Trump on Wednesday to a longshot Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn a presidential election that handed the White House to Joe Biden.
Legal experts say Texas Attorney General 鈥檚 effort to contest election results of four key battleground states is all but certain to fail. But it has from the Republican attorneys general of 17 other states.
As the president鈥檚 legal team loses case after improbable case in federal district and appellate courts, the Texas lawsuit offers a major advantage: It goes straight to the top. Under a special legal avenue unique to states, Paxton filed the case directly with the U.S. Supreme Court, a body Trump has suggested could deliver him the victory that voters did not.
鈥淭his is the big one!鈥� the president tweeted Wednesday morning, promising to get involved in the case.
This was not my case as has been so incorrectly reported. The case that everyone has been waiting for is the State鈥檚 case with Texas and numerous others joining. It is very strong, ALL CRITERIA MET. How can you have a presidency when a vast majority think the election was RIGGED?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
The Texas lawsuit takes issue with changes to election procedures in four battleground states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Paxton argues those changes were unlawful and call into question Biden鈥檚 victories in those states. He is asking the high court to block the critical battlegrounds from participating in the Electoral College.
Though the Supreme Court has a six-member conservative majority, including three justices appointed by Trump himself, it has so far shown no interest in siding with him in the election cases his campaign has lobbed. On Tuesday, it decisively rejected Pennsylvania Republicans鈥� effort to overturn Biden鈥檚 victory there in a with no dissents.
Legal experts and court watchers expect a similar outcome in the Texas case. The court has asked for a response from the four battleground states Texas is suing, setting a Thursday deadline, but has given no indication about how it will decide the matter.
鈥淭his is the Hail Mary with time running out the clock kind of play here,鈥� said David Coale, an appellate attorney in Dallas. 鈥淭his is really the last little window to sort of sneak in there and try to get a court involved.鈥�
States have a special legal ability to take cases directly to the Supreme Court, though such cases are rare, and more typically involve boundary disputes like water rights. If the high court accepts Texas鈥� argument that it can sue the four battlegrounds in this case, Coale said, 鈥渢hen any state can sue any other state about just about anything.鈥�
Even if the court gets past tricky procedural issues, Texas鈥� case faces an uphill battle.
Officials in the battleground states have roundly rejected Paxton鈥檚 argument, calling it 鈥渇alse,鈥� 鈥渋rresponsible,鈥� 鈥渁 publicity stunt,鈥� 鈥済enuinely embarrassing,鈥� 鈥渂eyond reckless鈥� and 鈥渂eneath the dignity of the office of attorney general.鈥�
They also point out that many of the claims Paxton makes about election irregularities in their states have already been litigated and roundly rejected. Experts, state election officials and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr have all said on a scale that could have affected the outcome of the election.
鈥淭exas alleges that there are 80,000 forged signatures on absentee ballots in Georgia, but they don鈥檛 bring forward a single person who this happened to. That鈥檚 because it didn鈥檛 happen,鈥� said Jordan Fuchs, Georgia鈥檚 deputy secretary of state.
Still, the long-shot odds of the Texas case have not kept it from sparking hope among Republicans in Texas and across the country.
Lt. Gov. , a firebrand conservative who has served as Trump鈥檚 Texas campaign chairman, said Paxton was right to challenge the battleground states, as did state GOP Chairman Allen West.
Gov. , a former Texas attorney general, treaded a characteristically careful line, signaling support for the lawsuit insofar as it 鈥渢ries to accelerate the process, providing certainty and clarity about the entire election process.鈥�
But U.S. Sen. , who is also a former Texas attorney general, was more , telling a reporter, "I frankly struggle to understand the legal theory of it."
"Why would a state, even such a great state as Texas, have a say so on how other states administer their elections?" Cornyn asked. "I'm not convinced."
Texas was alone in filing the case this week, but on Wednesday, 17 states with Republican attorneys general at the high court backing Texas. Trump asked to intervene in the case in a brief later Wednesday afternoon.
鈥淢issouri is in the fight,鈥� said the state鈥檚 attorney general, Eric Schmitt, who led the filing.
Beyond its unusual requests, the case was unusual for the attorneys who are arguing it.
Paxton was listed as the state鈥檚 lead attorney on the case, a highly unusual move for the attorney general, who has rarely been involved in such a hands-on way in the state鈥檚 cases.
Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins, the state鈥檚 top appellate attorney and a former clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, didn鈥檛 sign his name to the filing. Hawkins is the agency鈥檚 appellate expert, so it鈥檚 unusual for him not to appear on the case, legal experts said. Neither Hawkins nor the agency answered questions about why he was not involved.
Instead, the agency appears to have brought on an outside attorney, Lawrence Joseph, to handle the high-stakes case.
But court documents show he has often played a role in politically hot litigation. According to his website, he formed his firm in 2003 to undertake 鈥減olitically incorrect鈥� representation.
In 2014, Joseph authored a on behalf of dozens of Texas Republicans, including U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and a number of members of Congress. In it, he argued against the Affordable Care Act. The case was filed by Steve Hotze, a prominent conservative activist in Houston who has sued Abbott and others numerous times this year over pandemic-related restrictions and changes to election protocols.
In 2020, Joseph wrote another , siding with Trump, on behalf of the conservative group Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund. He that Congress lacked the power to subpoena Trump鈥檚 tax returns.
The Texas Attorney General鈥檚 Office did not respond to questions about how much Joseph is being paid for his work on the case.
Paxton, who has been indicted since 2015 on felony securities fraud charges, has been facing this fall after eight of his top deputies told authorities they believed he broke the law in using the agency to do favors for a political donor. The FBI is reportedly investigating the allegations. Paxton has fired five of the eight whistleblowers and now faces a lawsuit from four of them, alleging wrongful termination. He has denied wrongdoing.