Rudy Giuliani took a road trip to push claims of election fraud. He was rebuffed

WASHINGTON – Seated in front of Michigan state lawmakers and a largely unmasked audience on Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Guiliani waved binders, floated baseless conspiracy theories and urged lawmakers to stop what he called the "theft of an election."

Just a day earlier in Washington, Attorney General William Barr had contradicted claims of malfeasance that Trump and Giuliani have promoted in their efforts to overturn the election won by President-elect Joe Biden. Barr told the Associated Press the Justice Department had not found evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Michigan lawmakers were equally unreceptive to the claims of a stolen election, including the Republican legislators who had invited Giuliani to make his case. The lawmakers made clear the state had already certified Biden as the winner in Michigan and that the outcome wouldn't change.

The Lansing event was the latest stop on a postelection tour of battleground states – including Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan – that put Four Seasons Total Landscaping on the map. The Philadelphia landscaping company was the backdrop for a Nov. 7 event that made headlines because of conspiracy theories floated by the president's legal team.

In the courts, Trump's legal team has faced blistering rebukes and a series of defeats. 

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With the legal effort headed toward a dead end, experts said the tour by Trump's legal team may help fire up the president's base while harming faith in the country's election systems.

Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, told USA TODAY appearances in battleground states were “unprecedented” and were just “another opportunity [for Trump] to cast unfounded aspersions on the election process."

Unorthodox sessions in key states 

For much of an unorthodox, four-and-a-half hour session Wednesday in Lansing, Giuliani asked questions of witnesses, rather than fielding questions from lawmakers. And the entire presentation floated debunked conspiracy theories about the election. 

As Giuliani, Trump legal adviser Jenna Ellis and the witnesses spoke, the Trump campaign made clips of the event from a livestream and posted them online.

Ellis urged the lawmakers to intervene in the electoral process despite the state's certification of Biden's win by more than 150,000 votes. 

Giuliani's appearance was already pushed back a day. The Trump campaign had announced it would be participating in a hearing before the Michigan State Senate on Tuesday, but State Sen. Ed McBroom, the Republican chairman of the Michigan Senate committee holding Tuesday’s hearing, told USA TODAY in a statement the hearing was only for “those with first-hand accounts as poll watchers and challengers” in Detroit – which Giuliani did not have.

'This is not Four Seasons Landscaping' 

Michigan lawmakers Wednesday seemed occasionally frustrated at the often combative proceedings with Giuliani and his witnesses. "This is not Four Seasons Landscaping, this is the Michigan State Legislature," said State Rep. Darrin Camilleri, a Democrat.

The Republican chair of the committee, State Rep. Matt Hall, called the session a "little unusual" in its format. 

The Trump campaign touted meetings with state legislatures in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan as official state reviews of election results. But all three states have already certified their election results. Biden won Arizona by over 10,000 votes, Pennsylvania by over 81,000, and Michigan by over 154,188 votes. 

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed off on the state's certification of results Monday, even as Giuliani visited the state for a separate event. He later said, "we do elections well here in Arizona. The system is strong and that’s why I bragged on it so much."   

Giuliani pressed on. Packed into a ballroom at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix, Trump's attorney, his hands covered in what appeared to be ink, told legislators to disregard the state’s popular vote and deliver the state to Trump – something Ducey and other officials made clear was not going to happen.

Trump himself called in by speakerphone to events in Pennsylvania and Arizona to call the election a "fraud" and criticize Democrats, all to the cheers of the attendees.  

Ohio State University Law Professor Ned Foley, who has studied disputed presidential elections, said the Trump campaign was trying to “make something out of nothing.” During the famously disputed election in 1876, he said, “both sides had a plausible basis for claiming” they were wronged in the electoral process. But this time, he said, the Trump team was making claims without any evidence.

Legal defeats and recounts

Trump, for his part, said on Thanksgiving he would “certainly” leave office if the Electoral College voted for Biden. And in a 46-minute-long video posted to social media on Wednesday, Trump baselessly alleged "coordinated assault and siege" on the election and said he would fight on. 

The Trump campaign requested a partial recount in Wisconsin, but that resulted in overall slight net gain for Biden and he was certified as the winner in the state on Monday. 

The Trump campaign’s legal battles have met with a series of failures.

In a scathing Nov. 27 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected the Trump campaign’s efforts in a Pennsylvania lawsuit to block certification of the state’s election results based on unsubstantiated claims of fraud, affirming a lower court ruling dismissing the case.

"Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious," wrote Judge Stephanos Bibas as the court ruled in a case in which the Trump campaign sought to invalidate millions of ballots. "But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."

Trump’s legal team already jettisoned one of its lawyers, Sidney Powell, after a week in which she had repeatedly made claims without evidence that an international conspiracy had rigged the election against Trump.

Barry Richard, who represented George W. Bush during his Florida litigation in the 2000 election, said the Trump campaign’s lawsuits were baseless, and as more of the suits were dismissed, “for practical purposes, it is over.” 

Amid his refusal to concede and unfounded claims about the election, Trump and his team have taken heat from some Republicans, too. When Trump again tweeted Sunday about election fraud, Rep. Paul Mitchell, R-Mich., who is retiring this year, shot back, “Oh my God…Please for the sake of our Nation please drop these arguments without evidence or factual basis. #stopthestupid”

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., reserved his criticism for Giuliani, telling Fox News on Thursday, “Mayor Giuliani would not be my first choice to lead this fight," noting lawyers with expertise in election law might be a better choice.  

And a top Georgia elections official, Gabriel Sterling, delivered an impassioned plea to the president Monday to "stop inspiring" threats over the state's election results.

"Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia," he said as he called on him to cease his attacks on the election system.  

Undeterred, Giuliani visited the Georgia State Capitol Thursday to press his complaints before a State Senate committee. 

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Brendan Buck, who worked for the past two Republican House speakers and does not support Trump, called the efforts an attempt to “soothe” Trump’s ego “without any real strategy behind it. Trump’s refusal to concede and protracted fight over the election result “keeps alive the myth among his followers that he’s an invincible fighter” and would keep his base content.

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But he said Trump’s doomed effort would have consequences down-ballot as Republicans prepared for crucial Senate elections in Georgia. Trump is set to visit the state on Saturday to hold a rally with Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the two Republican senators facing tough runoff contests, even as the president has continued to cast doubt on the integrity of Georgia's election system. 

Buck said telling voters the election was rigged would result in lower Republican voter participation, and he warned a drop in turnout would hurt the Senate candidates and "could cost Republicans the Senate majority.”

Contributing: Courtney Subramanian and Kevin McCoy, USA TODAY; Dave Boucher, Detroit Free Press