George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Thursday that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s suit against Tesla CEO Elon Musk was “transparently political.”
Krasner, who left-wing billionaire George Soros has backed, sued Musk Monday over a giveaway that allowed one petition signatory to win $1 million daily. Turley told “America’s Newsroom” co-hosts Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer that Krasner was trying to “drag” Musk into a courtroom and off the campaign trail.
READ: DOJ Investigating Elon Musk’s PAC Over $1 Million Voter Sweepstakes
“He has always been known to have a very strong political edge as a district attorney. I think the filings his office has made are transparently political,” Turley said. “They want to pull Musk off the campaign and into a Philadelphia courtroom. Musk’s argument and his company’s argument is look, it is not illegal to have a lottery to sign a petition in favor of the constitution, we only want registered voters to do that. If you are going to be competing in this lottery, you have to be participating in the political process. The other side is saying it’s illegal to pay people to register or to vote.”
Musk, who funds America PAC, a super-PAC that is seeking to boost former President Donald Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, announced Oct. 20 he would give $1 million each day to a random signatory to a petition on the PAC’s website.
“They got a shot across the bow from the Justice Department on this but there have been no charges,” Turley continued. “The Krasner thing in Philadelphia is a civil action that is largely sort of nitpicking on whether this is an appropriate lottery system, but it seems like a real effort just to pull him into Philadelphia and into this courtroom in front of hopefully a friendly judge from Krasner’s point of view.”
READ: Elon Musk Calls For Paper Ballots And In-Person Voting At Pennsylvania Town Hall
Crime in Philadelphia has skyrocketed during Krasner’s tenure as district attorney, with a news anchor noting that over 1,000 people had been killed in 20 months in a contentious September 2022 interview with the district attorney.
Trump leads Harris in a head-to-head matchup by 0.8% in polls of Pennsylvania voters from Oct. 7 to Oct. 29, according to the RealClear Polling average. The former president leads or is tied in five of the last six polls in the crucial swing state when independent candidate Cornel West, Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver are included as options in the surveys.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.