Law Firm Porter Wright Stops Representing Trump Campaign in Pennsylvania Suit

The law firm leading President Donald Trump campaign's lawsuits against the state of Pennsylvania dropped the case on Thursday, following a similar move by another firm in Arizona. Porter Wright Morris & Arthur withdrew its federal lawsuit abruptly, according to a report by The New York Times, and said that it would not participate in any more litigation in the 2020 presidential election results. These are the latest signs that Trump's claims about election tampering are false.

"Plaintiffs and Porter Wright have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if Porter Wright withdraws," read the law firm's court filing on Thursday. This came shortly after the firm representing the Republican Party in Arizona withdrew its suit citing similar reasoning. Meanwhile, on Friday, a top lawyer at the law firm Jones Day reportedly told colleagues that Jones Day would not take part in any more election lawsuits, despite having represented the Trump campaign since 2015.

These law firms are abandoning the Trump campaign's lawsuits as it becomes more and more clear that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud or election tampering, despite the president's frequent claims. Trump's insistence on a widespread conspiracy against him is also raising concerns among political analysts about the long-term health of American democracy itself, and even other prominent Republicans are trying to distance themselves from those claims, in some cases.

However, the Trump campaign's communications director, Tim Murtaugh, suggested another theory about why the law firms were stepping away: "cancel culture." In a public statement on Friday, he wrote: "Cancel Culture has finally reached the courtroom. Leftist mobs descended upon some of the lawyers representing the president's campaign and they buckled."

Murtaugh added that the Trump team itself "is undeterred," and will continue to fight the election results with different representation. While it is legal for the campaign to continue these lawsuits, there is little chance that they will reverse the results of the election, given that Biden now has a monumental lead with 306 votes in the electoral college, according to a report by CBS News.

Trump's refusal to concede the election is also impacting the functionality of the federal government, particularly in its response to the coronavirus pandemic. So far, Trump's administration has been uncooperative with the Biden transition team, leaving both sides powerless in many regards to respond to the rising surge in new COVID-19 cases. Biden is expected to address this issue in a news conference on Monday afternoon.