Trump campaign drops lawsuit in Arizona and loses law firm support

A Michigan judge also rejected a Republican demand to delay the certification of the vote count in Detroit

The Trump campaign faced a series of legal setbacks on Friday as it dropped a lawsuit in Arizona, lost the representation of a second law firm and a bid to delay the certification of the vote in Michigan.

In Arizona, a state that President-Elect Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win since 1992, the Trump campaign dropped a lawsuit to review the ballots given that the final margin was over 11,000 votes.

On Tuesday, an Arizona judge had granted the law firm Arizona-based Snell & Wilmer, its request to withdraw from representing the Trump campaign.

The win in Arizona, plus NBC and CNN projecting on Friday that President-Elect Joe Biden is the winner in Georgia bringing his electoral votes to 306. The two outlets also projected Mr Trump to win North Carolina bringing his total to 229 electoral votes.

In Michigan, a state that Mr Biden won by more than 140,000 votes, a judge rejected a request by Republican legislatures to delay the certification of the votes and to conduct an audit of the election. Michigan is due to certify its votes on November 23.

The judge, Timothy Kenny, said the request, if granted, would have constituted judicial activism against the voting process in Detroit. “It would be an unprecedented exercise of judicial activism for this Court to stop the certification process of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers," he wrote.

The Trump campaign is also facing litigation hurdles where Mr Biden leads the US president by over 44,000 votes. The law firm, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, withdrew its representation of the Trump campaign in a lawsuit aimed at discarding the mail-in ballots.

“Plaintiffs and Porter Wright have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if Porter Wright withdraws,” the firm said.

Supporters of President Donald Trump hold signs during a rally in Georgia, AP

Trump's campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh accused the left of intimidating the law firm as a reason behind its withdrawal. "Leftist mobs descended upon some of the lawyers representing the president’s campaign and they buckled,” he said.

But Mr Trump’s efforts and claims of voter fraud without presenting evidence are being rebuked from inside the US government.

The country’s highest cybersecurity agency inside the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement on Thursday night arguing that the November 3 election is “the most secure in American history.”

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement released Thursday.