Well that didn't take long. The last-ditch legal effort by the elite strike force team of Trump lawyers to decertify the vote in Georgia is over. District Court Judge Mark Cohen denied Trump's motion asking the court to decertify the election. The suit was leveled against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and, typical of the elite strike force, was submitted on the fly and a bit haphazard and scattershot.
The campaign had also asked, in a December 31 filing, that the court hear the case before Wednesday's Electoral College vote certification in the Congress. They didn't bother to also share the complaint with lawyers for Kemp and Raffensperger, which is kind of a necessary step for a lawsuit. That sloppiness was part of why Cohen denied the injunction. "Although Plaintiffs counsel could have requested through this Court's ECF filing system an immediate hearing over this past holiday weekend, and obtained a hearing before the duty district Judge, counsel did not do so," he wrote. "Consequently, this Court was not informed of these filings until this morning at 9:38 a.m. when the case was assigned."
The Trump team objected to allowing a livestream or public phone line for the hearing, probably as a result of just having been burned in Trump's attempt at intimidating Raffensperger into a criminal conspiracy to commit election fraud. The less the public knows, they have apparently learned, the better. But there was enough live coverage on Twitter to relish the arguments. Like the defense summation of the suit: "Throwing crap against the wall."
Trump's problem, Judge Cohen said at one point in the hearing, is that "he just can't live with" the the fact that he lost. "It's hard to accept sometimes." He chided the lawyers for their sloppiness and for their attitude that if the state courts didn't provide them the outcome they wanted, they could just "bop on over to federal court" to get what they wanted. This judge didn't appreciate that court shopping.
Perhaps sending a message to the the Republican lawmakers trying to make their own political hay by trying to toss out the election results, Cohen pointedly declared "I took and oath," and said he cannot undo an election. Certification of this election is going to happen this week. It might take until January 7, because of those grandstanding Republican senators, but it is going to happen. It's not going to be the end, because Trump is delusional and probably thinks he can keep the office by force.
The courts—one united branch of government, including the state courts—have spoken. The election is over. Trump lost. Now it's just that handful of insurgent Republicans, and they are going to have to make a choice. They've already made it clear that they'll put Trump and their own political aspirations ahead of country. They'll have to decide if they'll stick to that if it means bloodshed.