A federal judge in Milwaukee on Saturday tossed out President Trump’s latest effort to overturn the election results in Wisconsin, dismissing the case and ruling that it had failed “as a matter of law and fact.”
In a strongly worded decision, Judge Brett H. Ludwig, a Trump appointee who took his post only three months ago, shot down one of the president’s last remaining attempts to alter the results of a statewide race. The decision came just one day after the Supreme Court denied an audacious move by the State of Texas to contest the election outcomes in Wisconsin and three other battleground states.
Judge Ludwig’s ruling was especially significant because after the Supreme Court’s terse decision Friday night, Mr. Trump complained that courts around the country have thrown out dozens of his lawsuits based on technicalities, and have not given him a chance to fully present his legal arguments.
Judge Ludwig, however, held a daylong hearing on Thursday and still found that Mr. Trump’s claims were lacking. He dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning Mr. Trump cannot refile it in the same court.
“This court has allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case,” Judge Ludwig wrote, “and he has lost on the merits.”
The suit in Milwaukee in many ways echoed the petition filed by Texas, which was backed by 17 Republican attorneys general and more than 100 Republican members of the House of Representatives.
