WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is headed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to continue his fight to overturn the results of the election and secure Trump a second term.
Giuliani is leading legal challenges to the balloting in Pennsylvania and other states as the Republican president seeks to maintain his base of supporters and keep his options open for opportunities post-presidency.
News reports late Tuesday and early Wednesday said Trump was also expected to attend the event, but the White House press pool was told the trip was canceled. Axios had reported that Trump's attendance at the hearing on Wednesday was subject to change.
The event is not being conducted officially by the Pennsylvania legislature but by a group of Republican lawmakers, Fox News said. It is an informal hearing.
"Elections are a fundamental principle of our democracy – unfortunately, Pennsylvanians have lost faith in the electoral system," state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who called the meeting, said in a statement. "Over the past few weeks, I have heard from thousands of Pennsylvanians regarding issues experienced at the polls, irregularities with the mail-in voting system and concerns whether their vote was counted."
Giuliani claimed in a Wednesday interview with New York radio station AM 970 that illegal votes were cast, especially in Philadelphia, that he wants to see disqualified. But a broad coalition of top government and industry officials says the Nov. 3 election was “the most secure in American history.”
The news of the hearing comes a day after Democrat Joe Biden was certified as the winner of the presidential vote in Pennsylvania. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf sent a “certificate of ascertainment” to the national archivist in Washington with the slate of electors who support President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Trump made Pennsylvania a centerpiece of his unsuccessful legal attempts to invalidate the election results, launching legal attacks on vote-counting rules and county election procedures.
A federal judge on Saturday dealt a serious blow to the Trump campaign’s legal efforts by dismissing a lawsuit that he said lacked evidence and offered “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”
The federal government on Monday recognized Biden as the "apparent winner” of the national presidential contest.
