Below is my column in the New York Post on the reappearance of Marc Elias in leading the effort to undo the victory of Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. While some have distanced themselves from the controversial Democratic lawyer, Sen. Bob Casey has embraced Elias in his effort to retain the seat. Despite being sanctioned and ridiculed by courts in prior cases, Democrats continue to enrich Elias, who is the personification of the hypocrisy of some self-appointed “save democracy” champions. Casey continued on Tuesday to refuse to concede. Every candidate has a right to have all of the votes counted. However, regardless of the outcome of the effort, Casey’s association with Elias destroys any moral high ground for him and his campaign.
Here is the column:
Marc Elias is back and that is not good news.
Despite the Pennsylvania race being called by the AP almost a week ago, Elias is working with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) to try to change that outcome. It is not surprising that Casey was left with Elias.
For many, Elias is a notorious figure who captures the hypocrisy of the “save democracy” crowd. Elias is an attorney who has been sanctioned in court and denounced by critics as a Democratic “dirty trickster” and even an “election denier.”
Despite his checkered history, Elias remains the go-to lawyer for many Democratic campaigns.
It was Elias who was the general counsel to the Clinton presidential campaign when it funded the infamous Steele dossier and pushed the false Alfa Bank conspiracy. (His fellow Perkins Coie partner, Michael Sussmann, was indicted but acquitted in a criminal trial.)
During the campaign, reporters asked about the possible connection to the campaign, but Clinton campaign officials denied any involvement in the Steele Dossier. When journalists discovered after the election that the Clinton campaign hid payments for the Steele dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie, they met with nothing but shrugs from the Clinton staff.
New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said at the time that Elias denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”
Elias was back when John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was questioned by Congress on the Steele dossier and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.
The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee were ultimately sanctioned by the FEC over the handling of the funding of the dossier through his prior firm. (I previously discussed the comparison to the criminal charges against Trump for treating the mislabeling of payments as “legal expenses.”).
The Democratic National Committee reportedly later cut ties with Elias.
Nevertheless, other Democrats continued to hire Elias despite his checkered past. He unsuccessfully led efforts to challenge Democratic losses. Elias also was the subject of intense criticism after a tweet that some have called inherently racist.
Elias continued to be accused of not defending but thwarting democracy. In Maryland, Elias filed in support of an abusive gerrymandering of the election districts that a court found not only violated Maryland law but the state constitution’s equal protection, free speech and free elections clauses. The court found that the map pushed by Elias “subverts the will of those governed.”
His work for New York redistricting was ridiculed as not only ignoring the express will of the voters to end such gerrymandering but effectively negating the votes of Republican voters.
In 2024, the Chief Judge of the Western District of Wisconsin not only rejected but ridiculed the Elias Law Group for one of its challenges. Judge James Peterson (an Obama appointee) said that the argument “simply does not make any sense.”
The point is that it does not have to make sense. Democratic campaigns fund Elias and his various profitable enterprises to seek to change the outcome of called elections.
That is the case with Casey. Trump won Pennsylvania’s presidential election, and Dave McCormick received tens of thousands more votes. With 99 percent of the votes counted, even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer relented in reversing his decision to bar McCormick from the orientation for new senators.
What is most striking is the strategy of Elias. The state has roughly 87,000 provisional ballots to count, but those ballots were generally challenged for defects or suspected invalidity. Even if they were to count, it is unlikely that they will break so overwhelmingly for Casey to overturn the result. Indeed, only about 30,000 were coming from Casey strongholds in Philadelphia and Allegheny County.
However, Elias just wants to get within .5% to trigger a mandatory recount.
It is reminiscent of Trump demanding an additional recount in Georgia, maintaining on a call that all he needed was to “find 11,780 votes” to change the outcome. All Elias needs to do is find 40,000 votes.
Of course, when Trump made that comment, Elias and Democrats insisted that he was seeking to defraud the state by demanding a new recount.
It is not the first time Elias seemed to morph into those he denounced. Previously in New York, Elias unsuccessfully sought to flip the result in a congressional race by claiming that the Dominion voting machines somehow switched or changed votes. Sound familiar?
Casey will eventually have to accept defeat, but Elias will remain the break-the-glass option for Democratic campaigns when other lawyers have lost the appetite for challenging election results.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
“Despite his checkered history, Elias remains the go-to lawyer for many Democratic campaigns.” Sleazy is as sleazy does.
Based on the provided search results, conceding an election to national office is neither a formal requirement nor a legal obligation. It is a ceremonial gesture, often referred to as a “concession speech,” which is a matter of courtesy and graciousness in American democracy, facilitating the peaceful transition of power. There is no legal or constitutional requirement for a candidate to concede an election.
A concession speech is not a binding contract, and a candidate can retract a concession if they choose to do so (as seen in the 2000 presidential election case of Al Gore). The lack of legal obligation is reflected in the fact that no modern presidential candidate has refused to concede, and declining to concede does not necessarily mean the election will remain perpetually contested. In summary, conceding an election to national office is a voluntary gesture, not a formal requirement or legal obligation. It serves as a symbol of sportsmanship and respect for the democratic process, but does not carry any legal weight or consequences.
Bob Casey resorts to the Democrat’s whore-in-chief. Slick move Bob…..
* similar to the pimp-in-chief…meaning? They’ll do anything for money lacking any skills.
The Good Professor is wrong….it is the various DOJ’s….especially the one headed by former US Supreme Court Nominee Merrick Garland that “shrugged” at the gross patent misconduct of Elias, the Law Firms he is/was associated with, and the many Democrat Candidates that have and continue to avail themselves of his kind of services.
Those include a Who’s Who List of Democrat notables and all to the person very repulsive to notions of honor, integrity, and both the Law and Democracy in their criminal pursuit of power, perks, and control.
Perhaps, the incoming DOJ leadership shall do some serious house cleaning and actually pursue those guilty of such crimes as we have seen committed by the Democrats. I mean not persecution (law fare) but old fashioned prosecution of criminals.
Law Fare has been the Democrats path but the Republicans can legitimately engage in lawful prosecution on actual crimes that are easily documented and are backed up by forensic evidence.
But…looking at how such efforts wound up in the past I have no hopes the Republicans can achieve that legitimate goal in a mere two or four years.
They best be planning for 2028.
Besides the sleazy resume presented by Dr Turley, Elias authored the letter signed by his 51 acolyte pseudogenerals who signed the hunter biden laptop denial.
Sen. Bob Casey will be known by the company he keeps.
It was actually (and literally) the “Save Hypocrisy” Movement!
Boom! That was very good, Cindy. Kudos
Estovir…….Aprecio eso, mi amigo!
More evidence that too much authority is given to anyone who passes a state bar exam . . . not to mention virtual immunity from prosecution.
This reprehensible sack of moral and ethical turpitude enabled the ‘Steele Dossier’ which was employed in the deception and fraud of the FISA court the consequences of which were legion with respect to the harm done to private citizens, the administration of the sitting president, and the citizens of the United States as a whole. Why he is not indicted, prosecuted, found guilty, disbarred and now wasting away in a Federal prison is of no surprise given what we have come to learn about the ‘deep state’ and its minions.
If it does not work to his advantage, he should be taken to court, i.e. GA v Trump. But it won’t matter to him if it doesn’t–because he has encriched himself financially. I’m sure that is all he cares about.
“It is not the first time Elias seemed to morph into those he denounced. ”
Unprincipled and hypocritical, that is the precise trademark of the left.
Elias has become the template for the term “shyster.”
So why do Dems and their surrogates like Elias lie about just about everything. That would be because they know the bigger liar has their back. That would be the lying legacy media. You would think the Dems would tout their policies. Like open borders. Children trans operations. Boys in girls sports, nutty books in school and on and on. Mr Turley you can wander around as a voice in the middle. The problem with the middle now. The left has gone so far out in the left loony bin the middle has moved far left.
Yes, Hillary Clinton and Marc Elias are ABOVE THE LAW. Otherwise they would have been prosecuted for conspiring to prevent Trump’s election by unlawful means (New York Election Law 17-152) after the FEC fined,her for mislabeling the Steele Dossier payments to Perkins Coie on her submittals as “Legal Services.” And, just like each of Cohen’s invoices is a separate felony, so would each submittal be. (A political organization is considered a business for the purpose of New York Penal Law 175.10, Falsification of Business Records.)
Each time I read a piece on this guy I hope President Trump installs the most constitutionally conservative and vicious Attorney General in America. So many individuals in and close to government must be addressed for corrupting our process.
A Trumo AG could do nothing to Elias, because his lawsuits are directed at state election laws, not federal laws.
“A Trumo AG could do nothing to Elias, because his lawsuits are directed at state election laws, not federal laws.”
Statute of limitations probably makes it impossible, but false accounting records regarding sources of income could have made Elias fair criminal game for Trump’s AG during his first presidency. Knowingly laundering payments from Clinton and Obama/DNC to the Putin spy (that was also under investigation by the FBI for espionage) and British spy who compose and wrote the ‘Trump-Russia Dossier’ and recording them as payments for legal services.
But Trump didn’t have a decent AG his entire term: a nervous Nice Guy pussy unwilling to meet Democrats head on, a Machivallian plant, and finally an AG whose overwhelming concern was presenting an air of propriety.
I don’t play a lawyer on the internet, but with all the machinations Marc Elias was involved in with the ‘Trump-Russia Dossier’, could a Fani Willis minded type of prosecutor think “Hmmmm… this smells like RICO!”
The Demons didn’t let any statute of limitations get in the way of going after Trump…
RICO
I nominate Mark Levin. He would take no prisoners.
A typical Democrat. He is fine with stealing elections. This clown could spark a civil war, given enough leeway and time. BTW, do elections ever have an end-time or do they just go on and on until the Elias-types are able to add boxes of ballots in numerous places to get the right number? Let’s face it, cheating does work. Look at the 4AM ballot dump in Milwaukee. Check out the graph. Tammy Baldwin pulls ahead after being behind all night, and VIOLA! She wins!
* Yes, set as many fires as possible all simultaneously. It works. Work on what is positive.
so when do the Republicans start jailing the MANY criminals of the democrat party for THEIR ACTUAL CRIMES….while releasing 1000’s of Republican prisoners!
Democrat….moral high ground?
Democrats are the most hate filled, greedy, lying, cheating, anti-America, hypocrites on the planet.
They Goose Step together in their attempted destruction of America
You can not be ignorant enough to not notice Democrats RAW hatred of the USA! Voting Democrat is Anti-America…PERIOD!
Bob Casey is out of touch Washington Swamp Elite who does not understand or accept the voters of Penn have voted him out. So he hires another Washington Elite Swamp Lawyer to find some way to Overturn the election. Elias wins all the time $$ he gets fools like Casey to Pay him $$$ win or lose, so he is a winner. Simply Casey is an Election Denier. He and Elias want to count/find magic votes to overturn the election. Bob think of the people of Penn and they tell you to leave vs yourself and the Washington Swamp.
You would never know of Elias’s more than sixty victories in courts including at the Supreme Court regarding the 2020 election. How about a review of Rudy Guliani’s record? Elias isn’t beloved by all Democrats but this portrayal is biased to the extreme.
You would never know of Elias’s more than sixty victories in courts including at the Supreme Court regarding the 2020 election.
It’s like the Clinton/Obama/Biden/DNC “Trump-Russia Dossier” was actually legally commissioned and the foreign spies/writers were legally paid by Marc Elias. AND fully verified by the FBI before they went before FISA courts, uttered that document to the courts, and swore under oath that it was all verified and had passed the court’s mandatory Woods test.
That’s how our intersectional Marxist black racist, Uncle Tom enigmainblackcom, would prefer you to see Elias’s legal career.
Uncle Tom continuing the Democrat strategy of “Please believe us, not your lying eyes”. Oh… “and equal justice for all!”
The same Uncle Tom enigmainblackcom who regularly bugled how Trump should be jailed by Bragg for supposed election law violations after Bragg reinterpreting statutes as Smith did in his 2012 prosecution of Governor McDonnell. Equal justice for all!
Uncle Tom enigmainblack has no worries that Marc Elias didn’t get exactly the same prosecution for multiple actual crimes relating to keeping false financial records as well as election legislation felonies. A little slap on the wrist fine will do… paid by a grateful Clinton slipping him a few dollars in “fees” to cover the fines he incurred for being her bagman paying her Russian spy/author.
How about a review of Rudy Guliani’s record?
Great idea, Uncle Tom, let’s do that Whataboutism! Equal justice for all is the battle cry, right?
Tovarisch enigmainblack: review and explain why Marc Elias got a pass not only on all the criminality he was involved in, but wasn’t at least disbarred after getting off with a fine instead of prosecution and jail for the crimes and being censored by several courts?
How about the two Obama/Biden Attorney Generals and two FBI Directors – all lawyers – who perjured themselves to the FISA courts repeatedly about that document Elias was bagman for, while uttering that false document to those FISA courts?
Any of them charged for those crimes? Disbarred?
Was Marc Elias taken to task by bar associations when, as an officer of the court, he stayed silent while watching his fellow officers of the court perjure themselves about that document while uttering that false document into court?
Your Whataboutism is that wonderful Democrat Big Difference, isn’t it Tovarisch enigmainblackcom:
One set of standards of justice for Rudi Guliani after he dared to expose the Biden Bribery Laptop. Get ‘im!
The complete opposite for Marc Elias for passing criminal payments to a Russian and British spy illegally employed to write a fraudulent document. And all those Obama/Biden lawyers in the DoJ and FBI who repeatedly committed crimes while using that document. Praise him for being a skilled lawyer with how he got that illegally commissioned and paid for political document successfully through courts.
BTW, are you hoping that your failed blog can once again grift off your fellow Black Nationalist racists and communists now that Trump has been reelected? Appears to have been DOA since Trump left the White House.
I take joy in knowing when you dedicate all this energy towards me, you’re doing less harm elsewhere. Name calling is the lowest form of argument. Enjoy your day.
I take joy in knowing when you dedicate all this energy towards me, you’re doing less harm elsewhere.
I can spare the five minutes it takes to deal with and expose lying angry racist cretins like you, son; it’s not like it’s hard work.
I feel it’s my duty to point out to the audience exactly what you are: a hate filled Marxist Black Nationalist racist. One filled with so much hate for Trump that, in an intersectional move similar to “Queers For Hamas”, you have served as an Uncle Tom for Joe Biden since the campaign began until an insurrection resulted in a coup to replace him with Vice President DEI Hire.
That would be the racist Joe Biden who said in the 1970’s he didn’t jungle bunny kids exactly like you allowed in schools with his white kids.
That would be the racist Joe Biden who told you he never met a decent, clean, well spoken black American in his 40 years in Washington DC until he met a mulatto named Barack Obama.
That would be the racist Joe Biden that told you in 2020 that if you didn’t vote for him, you weren’t black.
Now you pimp for racist Democrats who say black American men who voted for Trump instead of Harris are uneducated, that they’re misogynists, and they’re even racists!
Now if that isn’t Uncle Tom (which you accused Justice Thomas of being) supporting racist Joe Biden with posts and your efforts, what is?
Furthermore, I don’t point out that you are a lying black racist Marxist serving as an Uncle Tom for the racist currently in the White House to annoy you. You have no sense of shame about what you are, or about the posts you make here, so I don’t spend my time hoping I will offend your sense of principles or worry about your reputation being tarnished.
People who have no idea of the race baiting and racist hate you spew on your failed blog should be told what and who you are. Just like Marc Elias who you just attempted to defend, your history and what you’ve done should be exposed. And it doesn’t take much effort to point out what you are.
Name calling is the lowest form of argument.
Listening to you bleat about ‘name calling’ given your posts here… why don’t you proudly post links to your failed blog so people can see what you post about white Americans, Republicans, Trump, etc. You know how to post links here, don’t you?
Or would you prefer I select some of your best efforts on that blog and post them here as a window into your hate filled, racist empty communist soul?
That would take a few hours of effort on my part, but I can do that for you Tovarisch enigmainblackcom, proud racist Black Nationalist.
Feel free to post anything of mine here. I would suggest you skip the WordPress blog where I haven’t posted in years. Look for me on Medium at https://medium.com/@williamspivey where I have 44,000 followers or Substack at https://substack.com/@williamspivey1 I can’t post additional links in this post but you can find my work reprinted in Level Mag and The Good Men Project and in a few small newspapers.
You would never know of Elias’s more than sixty victories in courts including at the Supreme Court regarding the 2020 election
I will see your stupidity and raise it. To wit, Democrats historically up until the present, have had unimaginable success depriving blacks of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness via Fed legislation, Federal Court rulings including SCOTUS, e.g. Dred Scott. In fact, the SCOTUS Dred Scott 7-2 opinion was written in 1857 by Chief Justice Roger Taney…a Democrat.
Clearly, Democrats history of victories suppressing blacks is scandalous.
Yet here you are making
an ass of yourself once againridiculous claims. Alas we have come to accept that you chose to reject the sterling black role models of Booker T. Washington, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, et al but rather were enamored with gutter politics led by the likes of Malcolm X who was killed by one of his own Nation of Islam black followers, Thomas Hagan (aka Islamic name is Mujahid Abdul Halim).The history of the Depravity of the Democratic Party is deplorable. Their blood count is higher than that of the Republican Party once founded by abolitionists that wanted to end slavery but didn’t want them living next door.
I can tell you much more about Democratic Party history which you seem to use as a mechanism to ignore the fact the Republican Party has become much worse. They started on a slippery slope with the Compromise of 1877. The next year they gave us Posse Comitatus and since the 1940’s have been on a roll. Now they are the Party of shithouse countries, Muslim bans, and claiming Haitians are eating your pets.
I haven’t rejected all those you think I have. You also left out the role of the FBI and NYPD in the killing of Malcolm X. The “gutter politics” of Malcolm made possible some of the gains by MLK and others.
Elias has had several victories in court against Republican attempts at voter suppression. Turley makes him appear to be a charlatan. I don’t know why you need to defend voter suppression when Republicans do it, but you do.
If it makes you feel better, I readily admit the Democratic Party has a shit history. They’re nowhere near perfect now but the bar is so low when comparing them to modern day Republicans.
Gee Professor, I think you ought to tell us what you really think of Mr. Elias.
Seems like Mr. Elias should be in the same court that Mr Trump was found guilty of saying legal expenses were a business expense.
In Mr. Elias’ case, as well as the DNC , and Perkins Coie it would seem his machinations only caused a sanction by the FEC instead of being magnified 34 times by a New York court and all switched over to felonies.
Elias is exactly the guy Shakespeare was thinking about…
GEB,
Well said and spot on!
Marc Elias has no moral foundation and therefore no moral compass. It is sad that the evil of people who have no moral foundation affects so many others. He is a scourge on our republic.
but he gets results, and that is what counts.
Re: “but he gets results, and that is what counts..” So did Harry Reid when he knowingly lied about Romney’s tax returns. When confronted by same afterwards, Reid’s response was…”He lost, didn’t he?” The ends justify the means in your universe? Care that someday you become the victim of your own philosophy.
* They won’t become victims. It’s not possible. They constantly move like sharks.
And what does Reid and Romney’s tax return have to do with Elias? This article? This blog?
Re:”And what does Reid and Romney’s tax return have to do with Elias? This article? This blog?” What does Reid and Romney’s tax returns have to do with your comment I responded to. What if I told you…..would it make a difference in your world given the content of your question?
“but he gets results, and that is what counts.”
Someone needs to read (and understand) Faust.
What doe s Faust have top do with this article? Our the comment you’re referring to?
What does anything you have ever posted here have to do with intelligent commentary (rhetorical question)?
“What doe s (sic) Faust have top (sic) do with [. . .] the comment you’re referring to?
[Sigh]
Knowledge of the classics and thinking are dead. (At least among some of this blog’s commenters.)
Since you obviously have not read any version of Faust, or don’t understand the story’s moral, let me spell it out for you:
It’s called a “Faustian bargain.” You get something you want (e.g., results for a client) — without regard to the cost. In the end (as dramatized in the story), that cost is your soul and your own self-destruction.
In terms you might understand: You’ve treated yourself like a cheap whore.
Doe that help? Or do you need the explanation in emojis?
Re:”Someone needs to read (and understand) Faust…”Asked and answered, Sam. Time for the conversation to move on. Have a great day!