Great moments in court with Rudy Guiliani

 Jeremy Stahl, Slate  - During the hearing, Giuliani repeatedly insisted that this case was about rampant voter “fraud.” But the lawsuit itself—like other Trump legal proceedings—never actually alleged fraud, as doing so would require clearing a higher legal standard. While repeatedly saying the case was about “fraud,” Giuliani went back and forth on the critical legal question of whether the campaign was alleging any for the purposes of the court. The judge asked “it would be correct to say that you’re not alleging fraud in the amended complaint?” Giuliani responded that, actually, “it’s not correct” to say that because the complaint includes a “long explanation of a fraudulent process, a planned fraudulent process.” The judge followed up: “So you are alleging fraud?” Giuliani replied, “yes, your honor.” A few minutes later, when the judge pointed out that the complaint would then have to meet a higher legal threshold, Giuliani chose to immediately “correct myself.”

“So does the amended complaint plead fraud in the particularity?” the judge asked. “No, your honor, it doesn’t plead fraud,” Giuliani finally acknowledged. “It pleads … a plan or scheme.”

....  According to Giuliani, the election itself was “a concerted effort of the crooks that run the Democratic Party,” as he told the judge. He added, “you know that these big-city machines are crooked.” Specifically, every employee of the vote-count operation in most major cities were in on the conspiracy to commit fraud in plain sight, but they had to exclude poll observers, even Democratic poll observers, because “they couldn’t count on the fact that all Democrats are crooked.” He later accused election workers in Democratic-leaning cities of being part of the party’s “little mafia, who would be nice and quiet about it.”

When confronted directly by [Judge] Brann with the fact that he was basically asking a single judge to throw out an entire election with no evidence, all Giuliani could do was repeat his claims of widespread fraud. “At bottom, [you are] asking this court to invalidate more than 6.8 million votes,” the judge said, “thereby disenfranchising every single voter in the Commonwealth. Can you tell me how this result can possibly be justified?” Giuliani responded that, of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh votes, “as far as we’re concerned, your honor, those ballots could have been from Mickey Mouse.”

 .... Finally, Giuliani seemed to struggle with the English language itself. When describing poll observers having been prevented from adequately observing the polls, he stated, “they were denied the opportunity to have observation and ensure opacity.” The judge sought to clarify that opacity means a lack of transparency, rather than transparency.

“I’m not quite sure I know what opacity means,” Giuliani said. “It probably means you can see. These are big words, your honor.”