The Supreme Court overturned another last-minute bid from Republican prosecutors and lawmakers to alter the results of the US election this year. Republicans, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, banded together in an attempt to throw out votes from several swing states Joe Biden carried this year. Nearly 110 legislators in the US House of Representatives and Mr Trump himself joined the troupe, furthering unfounded claims of illegal voting.
Why can Donald Trump do now?
The Texas suit fulfilled a promise made both by Mr Trump and his attorneys while vote counting continued in the US.
They pledged to take their unfounded claims of illegal votes to the US Supreme Court, the head of the judiciary in the country.
Justices in the court – six of nine of whom are conservative – would have to power to insist state officials throw out some votes if they evidence suggested they did not meet legal requirements set out by legislators.
READ MORE: Outrage as Trump hosts parties whilst Covid kills 3,000 a day in US
But not one of the judges, including Mr Trump’s recent appointee Amy Coney Barrett and previous appointments Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, voted to take the allegations further.
They threw out the suit in a devastating one-sentence rebuke this weekend.
The justices said: “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.”
The decision has effectively derailed Mr Trump’s prospect of influencing the results in his favour, and he now has nowhere else to turn.
Texas Republicans seemed unwilling to back down, however, and floated secession as an appropriate response.
Local party chairman Allen West suggested some states should “form a Union” in the wake of the ruling.
He said: “This decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic.
“Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”
Texas representative Kyle Biedermann previously supported the idea, stating on Tuesday last week he would file legislation to “allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation.”
Texan Democrats responded with a damning indictment of the proposal, accusing Mr Biederman of attempting to “subvert the will of the people”.
Abhi Rahman, a spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party said: “You can’t claim to be patriotic and file a bill for Texas to secede from the union.
“You can’t attempt to subvert the will of the people and steal an election from the people and the elected president of the United States, Joe Biden.”