Another effort to overturn Donald Trump’s election loss failed in a Michigan court early Monday morning, with U.S. District Judge Linda Parker not only rejecting the attempt—“The People have spoken,” she wrote—but seeing through to the lawsuit’s real goal. The suit by six Michigan Republicans, represented by Sidney “Kraken” Powell, was “more about the impact of their allegations on people’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government” than it was about actually winning.
The Republicans were asking for, get this, a court order requiring Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to formally certify that Trump won the state despite having lost the state and for all voting equipment to be impounded. Parker wasn’t having it: “The closest plaintiffs get to alleging that election machines and software changed votes for President Trump to Vice President Biden in Wayne County is an amalgamation of theories, conjecture, and speculation that such alterations were possible.”
And based on all those theories, conjecture, and speculation, Powell and her Republican plaintiffs were asking for a judgment that would be “stunning in its scope and breathtaking in its reach."
"If granted, the relief would disenfranchise the votes of the more than 5.5 million Michigan citizens who, with dignity, hope, and a promise of a voice, participated in the 2020 general Election,” Parker wrote.
In other words: No. Definitely not.
On Friday, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected a Republican appeal of an earlier loss in the effort to block Wayne County’s votes from being certified. (The Trump campaign and allied Republicans took losses in six states on Friday.) But of course, as Judge Parker noted, at this point the plan is less to win in court than to spread distrust and, in too many susceptible people’s eyes, delegitimize Joe Biden’s entirely legitimate presidency.
