‘This is the big one’: Trump pledges to intervene in Texas election challenge branded ‘insane’

‘How can you have a presidency when a vast majority think the election was RIGGED?’

President Donald Trump has tweeted that he will be “intervening” in a legal bid in Texas to stop the result of the presidential election, as the move is branded as “insane”.

On Tuesday, the state of Texas asked the US Supreme Court to throw out the results of the presidential election in four states, in a long-shot attempt to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

The case was announced by the Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, a Republican, and has targeted states that President Trump won in 2016, but lost in 3 November’s election.

The lawsuit is attempting to get the lawmakers in the Republican-led states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to decide their own electors, instead of submitting the Democratic wins that were voted on by their residents.

It has been criticised by officials in all of the states, while legal experts have said it has little chance of succeeding, according to Reuters.

“The case that everyone has been waiting for is the State’s case with Texas and numerous others joining. It is very strong, ALL CRITERIA MET.

“How can you have a presidency when a vast majority think the election was RIGGED?” President Trump falsely tweeted on Wednesday morning.

He added: “We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”

President Trump tweeted about the lawsuit after the attorney generals of Alabama and Louisiana expressed interest in joining the legal action, according to Newsweek.

On Tuesday evening, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said that he would join the lawsuit if the Supreme Court takes it on.

“The unconstitutional actions and fraudulent votes in other states not only affect the citizens of those states, they affect the citizens of all states—of the entire United States,” Mr Marshall wrote in his statement on Tuesday.

Mr Paxton’s lawsuit alleges that the results in the four states should be invalidated because changes made to comply with Covid-19 measures were undertaken without being passed through the legislature.

He claimed that the changes were unconstitutional, and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry agreed, writing on Tuesday that “some states appear to have conducted their elections with a disregard to the US Constitution. 

“Furthermore, many Louisianans have become more frustrated as some in media and the political class try to sidestep legitimate issues for the sake of expediency.”

Mr Landry added: “Louisiana citizens are damaged if elections in other states were conducted outside the confines of the Constitution while we obeyed the rules.”

Speaking to CNN on Tuesday evening, George Conway, an attorney and the husband of Mr Trump’s former counselor Kellyanne Conway, said that the lawsuit is “the most insane thing yet”.

He continued: “They are peddling to the Supreme Court the notion that it’s anomalous that some votes in some areas at some points in time are going to more one-sided than others. It’s crazy and they’re saying that.”

Mr Conway added: “They’re throwing all the garbage allegations of fraud that the Trump campaign wouldn’t put in some of their complaints in federal district court! It’s absurd and an embarrassment.”

On Tuesday night, the US Supreme Court rejected a similar case by Pennsylvania Republicans that attempted to invalidate the state’s popular votes and allow its state legislature to decide its electors.

Electoral college electors are scheduled to meet on 14 December to cast the final votes, which will then be approved by Congress on 6 January.

Although Mr Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election last month, Mr Trump has yet to concede, despite officially launching the transition process.

The president and his campaign team have filed around 40 unsuccessful lawsuits in battleground states that Mr Biden won. The Trump team has so far provided no definitive evidence of any large-scale voting irregularities.

Mr Biden won the presidential election by 306 to 232 electoral college votes, and received 7 million more ballots nationally than Mr Trump.