The 2020 reelection campaign of President Joe Biden has parted company with election lawyer Marc Elias, who played a crucial role in orchestrating the “Russia collusion” lie and filed many lawsuits that altered voting procedures in Biden’s favor.
Several persons familiar with the matter said that President Biden’s staff recently severed ties with the Democratic Party’s veteran counsel due to differences about Elias’ legal techniques and deteriorated personal connections.
During the 2024 election cycle, the party’s legal machinery will be split down the middle, with Elias representing the House, Senate, and state legislative committees of the Democrats, Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee relying on outside counsel.
Since Al Franken’s 2008 victory against Senator Norm Coleman, a race that secured a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for Democrats, Elias has habitually contested election results.
Elias, who at the time worked for the Democratic Party-aligned law firm Perkins Coie, was exposed by the Washington Post in 2017 for having engaged the opposition research company Fusion GPS on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to compile the infamous Russia “dossier.”
As a result, the FBI opened an investigation, and media outlets began spreading conspiracy theories about a plot to steal the 2016 election.
Elias left Perkins Coie not long before he was called a crucial witness in the prosecution of Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who had worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign. He freely confessed that Fusion GPS’s direction was entirely up to him.
Some have interpreted the jury’s decision to acquit Sussmann as an act of jury nullification. The Beltway establishment just views Trump and his followers with suspicion, while those who disagree with him benefit from the doubt.
Using the coronavirus epidemic of 2020 to expedite a tactic the party had started to adopt to turn out its voters in more significant numbers, Elias led Democratic Party efforts to challenge voting rules to allow for universal vote-by-mail. In a twist of fate, he also spearheaded attempts to overturn Democratic election losses by blaming voting machines.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals disbarred Elias in 2021 and had him take a refresher course in legal ethics.
