Emails indicate North Dakota's attorney general advocated for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Texas' lawsuit over the presidential election despite an expectation among some of his top officials that it wouldn't succeed.
The state's deputy solicitor general told Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem he thought the high court would deny the case "in one sentence." A professor who has studied states' support of the lawsuit in depth sees the attorney general's move as contradictory for North Dakota.
Stenehjem said the 17 states who signed onto a court document called an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit took no position on whether electoral fraud occurred, but "we only say that if there was, thatâs an issue the Supreme Court should look at."