Missouri AG joins lawsuit challenging presidential election results in four states

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has thrown his support behind a lawsuit seeking to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s wins in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate election results in the four battleground states. He is claiming changes to election procedures in those states in response to the ongoing pandemic violated federal law and allowed for voter fraud to occur.

Schmitt tweeted Tuesday that he will “help lead the effort in support of Texas’ #SCOTUS filing today.” His announcement came on “safe harbor day,” the date established by federal law as the deadline for all state-level election challenges to be completed.

Wednesday afternoon, Schmitt announced he was part of a group of 17 attorneys general filing a brief in support of the Texas lawsuit, saying the “integrity of our elections is of critical importance to maintaining our republic.”

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election — directly disputing President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that he won re-election.

Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California at Irvine School of Law, said on his website that the Texas effort to overturn the election results “is a press release masquerading as a lawsuit.”

Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the allegations in the Texas lawsuit “are false and irresponsible.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told the Detroit Free-Press that the lawsuit is a “publicity stunt, not a serious legal pleading.”

Wisconsin Attorney General said told a Milwaukee television station that the lawsuit is “a waste of tax dollars, and I feel sorry for Texas residents that their tax dollars are being spent on this.”

The last-ditch bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race comes after numerous other legal efforts by the president his campaign have fizzled. According to an Associated Press tally of 50 legal challenges brought by the Trump campaign and its allies, more than 30 have been rejected or dropped and around a dozen are awaiting action.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to block the state from certifying the results for Biden. Another Pennsylvania case is still pending before the court, filed by the state GOP and challenging a court ruling that extended the deadline for absentee ballots until three days after Election Day.

Schmitt was among the attorneys general who filed a brief in that case in support of the Pennsylvania GOP lawsuit.