How Rudy Giuliani plans to get Trump’s legal battle to the Supreme Court by failing upwards

President’s personal lawyer joins lawsuit challenging the electoral process while other attorneys flee

Is Rudy Giuliani headed to the Supreme Court?

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney has joined a lawsuit battling the electoral process in Pennsylvania, after multiple lawyers fled the case this week. It’s a last-minute bid to join a lawsuit that Mr Giuliani himself appeared to suggest was doomed to fail: in an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday, the former New York City mayor said: “Frankly, that is a case that we would like to see get to the Supreme Court.”

He continued to his apparent strategy to overturn the results of the election, saying: “We're prepared in some of these cases to lose and to appeal and to get it to the Supreme Court.”

Mr Giuliani, who was due to appear in court virtually on Tuesday, told the conservative network the campaign was planning to “probably” sue in “at least eight or nine” additional states. He had to request special permissions to represent the campaign in Pennsylvania, where he is not admitted to practice law.

“You might remember in Bush v. Gore the Bush campaign lost in the state of Florida because it was a Democratic court,” he said. “You're not going to win every one of these ... But in some cases you win, some cases you lose. The most important thing is this will be now our first established vehicle on our way to the Supreme Court.”

The Trump campaign and the president himself have continued promoting debunked and otherwise false conspiracy theories surrounding the results of the election and ballot counting process in the wake of their defeat to President-elect Joe Biden.

The Department of Homeland Security called the 2020 election “the most secure” in American history — but Mr Trump has falsely claimed millions of illegal ballots were added into the system.

His campaign has continued to allege representatives were unable to watch the ballot counting process in key states where Mr Trump lost to Mr Biden, though such claims have already proven not to be credible in many cases.

In a tweet on Saturday, Mr Trump wrote: “I look forward to Mayor Giuliani spearheading the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS!”

Mr Giuliani has meanwhile taken a lead in promoting some of the most outlandish conspiracies surrounding the election, as droves of the president’s supporters take to the streets in cities across the country for large demonstrations.

On Tuesday, he continued to claim the president’s representatives were unable to witness the vote count, saying: “The only remedy the court has is to just cancel out those votes.”

“I believe we have amassed more than enough evidence in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and Georgia,” he claimed, adding: “I believe we’re very close in Nevada.”

Again, to be clear, the president’s campaign has yet to provide any credible evidence of mass voter fraud. 

Moreover, Mr Trump has repeatedly lied about the results of the election, falsely claiming before votes could even be counted that he was only capable of losing if there was systematic nationwide vote rigging. And the Democratic Party, as well as the Biden campaign, also maintained the right to appeal cases to the Supreme Court.