Judge says Texas Attorney General Paxton must face ethics lawsuit

Josh Shapiro
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This has become a circus.

The continued attacks on our election are beyond meritless, beyond reckless. It is a scheme by 🤡 the sitting president & his enablers 🤡 to disregard the will of the people. It’s not serious & it will not stand.
fox43.com
Texas Attorney General sues Pennsylvania as US Supreme Court refuses to take up separate challenge
The Texas Attorney General claims four battleground election states exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state laws
11:34 AM · Dec 8, 2020

Zoe Tillman
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Dec 8, 2020
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Today marks the federal safe harbor deadline for states to certify election results. On what that means for Trump and his supporters' legal challenges: 
https://buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/trump-republican-election-lawsuits-deadline


Meanwhile, we have a FLURRY of notable court activity to kick of the day. Yes, a thread:
buzzfeednews.com
Trump's Desperate Effort To Overturn The Election Is Running Out Of Time
Trump’s own lawyers have acknowledged that a Dec. 8 deadline for states to certify federal election results is “critical” as they push last-ditch challenges in court.
Zoe Tillman
@ZoeTillman
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Texas has moved to sue GA, MI, WI, and PA *in the US Supreme Court*. It's asking SCOTUS to let legislatures decide who won — an extraordinarily extreme ask rooted in baseless voter fraud conspiracies that numerous judges have repeatedly rejected https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/SCOTUSFiling.pdf?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=
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10:11 AM · Dec 8, 2020

Zoe Tillman
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Dec 8, 2020
@ZoeTillman
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Replying to @ZoeTillman
This case — filed more than a month after Election Day — challenges decisions state officials made about how to run the election during the pandemic *before* Election Day. And it promotes conspiracy theories that judges have found unsupported and not credible in the weeks since
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Zoe Tillman
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It also argues that SCOTUS should invalidate millions of votes in part because Biden did better in these states than Hillary Clinton did and than Trump was supposed to. This argument is that it was suspicious simply that Biden got more votes
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10:25 AM · Dec 8, 2020

The Texas State Bar, an agency that oversees licensed attorneys in the state, filed the lawsuit against Paxton in state court in Dallas last May. The complaint said Paxton made "dishonest" statements in a lawsuit that sought to toss 2020 election votes in four states.

A different Texas judge last year dismissed a related legal ethics case against Paxton aide Brent Webster, who also was accused of making “dishonest” statements in challenging 2020 election results. An appeal is pending in that case.