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Right-Wing Plan To Restore Trump To White House Falls Flat At SCOTUS. Shocker!

What's worse than being trapped in 2016 forever? Being trapped in 2020. Welcome to hell!

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Would it surprise you to find out that the Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari in an election suit filed by a pro se litigant against 338 federal officials seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election?

No?

Well, perhaps you need to spend more time in the wingnut-o-sphere, which has been relentlessly hyping this clown bowtie — really, it doesn’t rise to the level of a clown suit — as if it might amount to more than a pathetic squirt of water in the eye of a gullible rube.

The case was brought by one Raland Brunson, of Utah, and his brothers Loy and Deron. None of them is a lawyer, but Deron, who told the Salt Lake Tribune that he’s “the guy who put it all together,” took a $249 course called “How To Win In Court Without A Lawyer,” so he was pretty confident.

Check out this killer petition:

This case uncovers a serious national security breach that is unique and is of first impression, and due to the serious nature of this case it involves the possible removal of a sitting President and Vice President of the United States along with members of the United States Congress, while deeming them unfit from ever holding office under Federal, State, County or local Governments found within the United States of America, and at the same time the trial court also has the authority, to be validated by this Court, to authorize the swearing in of the legal and rightful heirs for President and Vice President of the United States.

In addition there are two doctrines that conflict with each other found in this case affecting every court in this country. These doctrines are known as the doctrine of equitable maxim and the doctrine of the object principle of justice. Equitable maxim created by this court, which the lower court used to dismiss this case, sets in direct violation of the object principle of justice also partially created by this Court and supported by other appeal courts and constitutional provisions.

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Plus they want $2.9 billion in damages, which the court should make tax-free, obviously. You don’t learn that kind of reasoning on law review!

The boys originally filed their case in Utah state court. But it was almost immediately removed to federal court, where it was dismissed for lack of standing. Unsurprisingly, the Tenth Circuit did not reverse, and there is no reason on earth that we would know anything about this exercise of fraternal onanism except that conservative commentators who know damn well that this is nonsense kept pretending that it might actually work.

First Mike Huckabee wrote on Substack that the Supreme Court had “agreed to a hearing” in the case:

This started as two separate lawsuits brought by four brothers in Utah, but only one of them is advancing to the Supreme Court. To get it there, the brothers bypassed the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, where it was stalled, by saying in a cover letter that this suit was a matter of national security. The Court was apparently so interested in this case that they received a personal call from the Court clerk asking how soon they could get their documents together. The brothers got it all to them in one week.

Spoiler Alert: No.

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The court automatically accepted the petition, which was considered at last week’s scheduling conference. The US government was so wholly unconcerned with this sack of crap that it waived the right to respond. But with Huckabee’s imprimatur, the case quickly became the next great wingnut hope — not to mention a goldmine for the Brunson brothers, who were still at the time of this writing selling copies of their glorious petition online at $30 a pop.

It even earned them an appearance on Roger Stone’s podcast last week, where Loy told the host that “It’s very possible that Donald Trump could be the president of the United States in the next few days.”

Dumbest freakin’ timeline.

These Utah brothers want the Supreme Court to remove Joe Biden from the White House, reinstate Donald Trump [Salt Lake Tribune]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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