Rudy Giuliani straight up asked a federal judge to ignore Pennsylvania voters and declare Trump won the state

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Rudy Giuliani straight up asked a federal judge to ignore Pennsylvania voters and declare Trump won the state
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney to U.S. President Donald Trump, wipes away sweat as he speaks about the 2020 U.S. presidential election results during a news conference in Washington, U.S., November 19, 2020.REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
  • In a new court filing, the Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Marc Scaringi asked a federal judge to declare President Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania.
  • President-elect Joe Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes.
  • The judge appeared skeptical of Giuliani's legal argument when he presented it in court Tuesday.
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The Trump campaign on Wednesday night asked a federal judge to ignore Pennsylvania voters and declare President Donald Trump the winner of the state's 20 electoral votes.

In a court filing signed by Rudy Giuliani and Marc Scaringi — the two remaining attorneys on the case after everyone else quit — the campaign asked for the judge to hand over Pennsylvania's electors.

"Ultimately, Plaintiffs will seek the remedy of Trump being declared the winner of the legal votes cast in Pennsylvania in the 2020 General Election, and, thus, the recipient of Pennsylvania's electors," they wrote.

The filing is part of the campaign's main legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and invalidate President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

Giuliani argued the case in court Tuesday, to a cool reception from Judge Matthew Brann.

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"You're asking this court to invalidate more than 6.8 million votes, thereby disenfranchising every single voter in the commonwealth," Brann said at the hearing. "Can you tell me how this result can possibly be justified?"

This filing accompanied a new, third version of the federal lawsuit the campaign filed in an attempt to stop the state from certifying its election results.

Brann hasn't decided whether to accept the revision. Other parties in the case — including Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, several counties, and civil-rights groups such as the NAACP — have asked for the case to be dismissed, saying the Trump campaign has brought little evidence to back up its claims of mass voter fraud and has demonstrated little understanding of Pennsylvania election law.

Read more: 'No one can talk about it': Federal officials are fuming as transition books are gathering dust on their desks and their Trump-appointed bosses won't acknowledge Biden's win

Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, according to Decision Desk HQ data published by Insider. And even in the unlikely event that the Trump campaign persuaded federal courts to overturn the state's result, Biden would still win the presidential election; he has won 306 electoral votes and needs 270 to win.

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The Trump campaign appears to have shifted its strategy in recent days away from federal lawsuits and toward efforts to stop individual counties from certifying their election results, according to The Associated Press.

The Trump campaign withdrew from its major federal court case in Michigan on Thursday morning. In a statement, Giuliani said the lawsuit was no longer necessary and falsely declared that Wayne County did not certify its results.

Of the 21 lawsuits that the Trump campaign and other Republican and GOP-aligned groups have filed since Election Day, they have won zero.

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