Giuliani blames centralized effort for robbing Trump of re-election

WASHINGTON — Flanked by other members of President Donald Trump’s private legal team, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that a “centralized” effort in big cities controlled by Democrats robbed the president of a victory on Nov. 3 with an assist from “friendly judges that will issue ridiculously irrational opinions.”

Speaking at the Republican National Committee D.C. headquarters for more than 90 minutes, Giuliani provided an update on ongoing legal challenges related to the presidential election and berated the press corps for its coverage.

Fellow Trump attorney Sidney Powell also spoke of the “massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba and likely China” that somehow overturned an election that Trump won “in a landslide.”

At the lawyers’ side was a chart that highlighted six states — Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia — that they said offer “multiple pathways to victory” for Trump.

However, Nevada GOP legal challenges to the Silver State’s vote count have failed in court, even after Republicans alleged that thousands of Clark County votes were cast by nonresidents or dead people.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal also conducted “a review of available facts and cases (and) found few, if any, irregularities that could have swayed the results.”

The claim of a voter-fraud conspiracy was disputed by others who saw a clean election.

Jonathan Turley, the high-profile George Washington University law professor who was the lone GOP witness to testify before the House Judiciary Committee against impeaching Trump, told Fox News that the RNC presentation was “short on hard evidence,” and the far-flung charges presented “everything but a sinister figure petting a white cat.”

Christopher Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who was fired this week by Trump, tweeted that the press conference “was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re lucky.”

The Trump-Pence legal team has lost multiple lawsuits meant to change the vote count in state and federal courts. And on Thursday, the campaign withdrew its remaining federal lawsuit in Michigan and a superior court judge in Arizona tossed out a GOP lawsuit.

U.C. Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who has advised Trump on White House legal strategy, told the Review-Journal that the campaign’s chance of prevailing in court are in the neighborhood of one percent.

“To be able to successfully overturn the vote totals, that’s never happened in our history,” Yoo said.

The FBI and district attorneys could become involved if they suspected hacking or other criminal activity, Yoo said, but, “No one’s doing that because none of these prosecutors see plausible evidence.”

“They could have had Clarence Darrow and I don’t think they could win in court,” Yoo added.

But Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to the campaign, called the remarks made at Thursday’s press conference “an opening statement” and a hint of what is to come in court.

“This is not a ‘Law and Order’ episode where everything is neatly wrapped up in 60 minutes,” she cautioned.

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.