President Donald Trump has lost his latest legal challenge seeking to overturn Georgia’s election results, with the state Supreme Court’s rejection late Saturday of a case from Trump’s campaign and Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer.
The suit – similar to other Trump team legal challenges, which made baseless allegations of widespread fraud in Georgia’s presidential election – was initially filed Dec. 4, then rejected by the Fulton County Superior Court because the paperwork was improperly completed and it lacked the appropriate filing fees.
The case was subsequently appealed directly to the state Supreme Court, asking justices to consider the case before Monday’s meeting of the Electoral College. In a brief order, justices wrote that “petitioners have not shown that this is one of those extremely rare cases that would invoke our original jurisdiction.”
It’s the latest legal setback in the president’s efforts to overturn the election results. On Friday the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit backed by Trump seeking to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory, a move that ended a desperate attempt to get legal issues rejected by state and federal judges before the nation’s highest court.
Even as lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies have been rejected around the country, the president has continued to make repeated baseless claims of widespread fraud. In Georgia, he has rained criticism on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, both fellow Republicans.