Trump says it'll be hard for election lawsuits to reach top court

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump acknowledged that the fight to overturn his reelection defeat “probably” won’t reach the Supreme Court, which had been the goal of his legal team.

“It’s very hard to get a case to the Supreme Court,” Trump said in a Fox News interview conducted by telephone from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md. “I probably can’t get a case.”

On “Sunday Morning Futures” the president rehashed a litany of largely unfounded allegations about the Nov. 3 election without offering new evidence for his claim that millions of votes across several battleground states were fraudulent.

He signaled that his legal options may be running out, but suggested there was no “drop-dead” date for his challenges to finally come to an end.

Trump’s legal team has suffered a series of setbacks in a longshot bid to help him cling to power. The strategy has relied on recounts in several states that so far haven’t helped him, legal cases that have nearly all been dismissed, and appeals to state lawmakers to overrule the popular vote.

“I’ve got the best Supreme Court advocates, lawyers, that want to argue the case if it gets there, but they said it’s very hard to get a case up there,” Trump said.

Maria Bartiromo, once a feared and acclaimed journalist, best known for working the floor of the NYSE, forcing CEOs to tell the truth, now sits behind a desk and invites the president to lie and lie and lie. pic.twitter.com/a3uTUGK1nv

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 29, 2020

Trump’s legal team has shrugged off legal failures by saying it’s all part of a march to the Supreme Court. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority and three justices appointed by Trump — the latest, Amy Coney Barrett, was confirmed by the Senate just weeks ago.

But Trump has been pummeled in the lower courts, in part because his campaign’s lawsuits haven’t backed up his out-of-court claims of widespread fraud.

One of Trump’s legal advisers, Jenna Ellis, said as recently as Friday that they were headed to the top court after their latest setback in Pennsylvania.

In Sunday’s lengthy interview, the president largely repeated unfounded allegations of large-scale fraud involving mail-in ballots, voting machines, and other methods, egged on by the show’s host, Maria Bartiromo.

His campaign hasn’t made the most outlandish allegations in court, instead focusing on mundane irregularities such as Republican poll watchers who complained they were prevented from closely observing vote counts, or local election officials who allowed voters to “cure” ballots of small mistakes.