US Supreme Court quashes Trump's attempt to keep the White House

The US Supreme Court has quashed the last-ditch bid by President Donald Trump to hold the White House by refusing a petition trying to reverse the outcome of the Nov 3 elections.

“For lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution, the […] motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied,” the court wrote in a statement announced on Friday evening. “All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”

The decision almost guaranteed that on the inaugural day, January 20, Trump’s Democratic opponent Joe Biden would take his oath as the 46th US president.

Filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in four swing counties, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the case tried to invalidate 10 million votes lost by President Trump. This attempt was also endorsed by seventeen of the 50 US states and 120 Republican representatives.

“Texas has not shown a judicially recognisable interest in how another state conducts its elections,” the Supreme Court wrote, noting that it dismissed the “lack of standing” argument.

Though President Trump has been attempting since election day to reverse the votes, this is the current and most important legal setback for him and his supporters to date. No immediate remarks were given by the incumbent, who was otherwise very vocal in describing why it was necessary not to elect Biden as the next president.

“We will be intervening in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our country needs a victory!”We will participate in the case of Texas (plus many other states). This is the big one A victory is needed for our country!

Paxton’s motion urged the justices to postpone the voter certification date to Dec 14, allowing time for the four states to review suspected voting violations. A brief in favour of Texas was also filed in the Supreme Court by seventeen other states. This covered the states that Trump won in 2020, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.

Minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, along with a bunch of Republican lawmakers, have endorsed the change in the US House of Representatives.

The four states that were threatened by Paxton had to respond until Thursday afternoon.

“In its response, Michigan wrote, “The challenge here is an extraordinary one without a credible basis or a clear legal basis.

Pennsylvania said the case was a “seditious abuse of the judicial process” and called on the court to “send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated”

“The most controversial of the battleground states, Georgia, wrote: “The arguments of Texas are no different from the numerous lawsuits filed in Georgia’s state and federal courts over the past weeks. […] And none of that action has gone anywhere.

“Among the disputed states, Pennsylvania, which has the highest number of electors-20, wrote: “Nothing in the text, tradition, or constitutional system supports the opinion of Texas that it should control the way four sister states run their elections, and Texas has suffered no harm because it dislikes the outcome of those elections.

Even Ohio, won by President Trump of the county, rejected Texas’ motion. “A fundamental premise of our federalist system would be undermined by the relief that Texas seeks: the idea that states are sovereigns, free to govern themselves,” it wrote.

Lower courts have now denied hundreds of Trump campaign cases and petitions, prompting the president and his allies to pin their hopes on the Supreme Court.

Trump asked the Supreme Court earlier Friday to entertain the case. “If the Supreme Court demonstrates great wisdom and courage, perhaps the most important case in history will be won by the American people and our electoral process will be respected again,” he tweeted.

The president has said that because the polls were heavily rigged, they were going to reverse the outcome. But US Attorney General Bill Barr, a Trump appointee, said earlier this month that no proof of systematic voting fraud has been seen by the Department of Justice yet.

A increasing number of Republicans have noted the absence of Trump, too.