Trump team makes last-gasp effort to overturn vote in Pennsylvania

Move came day after legal team kicked out attorney Sidney Powell

Donald Trump is making a last-gasp effort to overturn the presidential election result in Pennsylvania.

Republicans in the battleground state filed an emergency lawsuit to try and block certification of Joe Biden’s win.

Congressman Mike Kelly, an ally of the outgoing president, is named as one of the plaintiff’s in the court papers.

They have asked a judge to strike down Pennsylvania’s expanded mail-in ballot rule that was passed last year by the Republican held state legislature.

Mr Biden won 75 per cent of the state’s mail-in votes, according to state data analysed by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In a separate case Mr Trump’s campaign has also filed an appeal in a case in which it asked a judge to throw out the election result and name Mr Trump the winner, despite him losing the state by 81,000 votes.

Over the weekend US District Court Judge Matthew Brann threw out the suit branding it a collection of  “strained arguments ... and speculative accusations."

"In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state,” he wrote in his ruling.

“Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”

The moves come just a day after the president’s legal team, helmed by Rudy Giuliani, disavowed attorney Sidney Powell.

She had attended a press conference last week with Mr Giuliani in which she claimed Donald Trump had won the election by a “landslide” but had been the victim of a wide-ranging conspiracy.

Her bizarre claims that it had been rigged by Venezuelan communists and others was even too much for Tucker Carlson of Fox News who became embroiled in a public spat with Ms Powell.

“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity,” the legal team said in a statement.

Her firing came just a week after Mr Trump boasted on Twitter about Ms Powell being part of his campaign’s legal team.