Lawyers arguing Donald Trump's many cases in court appear unwilling to repeat the US President's claims of election fraud, perhaps fearing losing their licences to operate.
Trump's team has filed a number of lawsuits alleging all kinds of impropriety, particularly in states where it appears he has lost, but needed to win in order to keep the presidency.
Pennsylvania, where Democrat Joe Biden has a lead of 54,613 - a bigger margin than Trump had over Hillary Clinton in 2016 - is key to Trump's chances. The former reality TV star has made repeated unfounded claims of election fraud happening in the state.
But his lawyers don't seem so certain that's true.
In one case, a judge reportedly asked Trump campaign attorney Jonathan Goldstein if there was "any fraud in connection" with a bunch of ballots a suit alleged had been addressed incorrectly.
"To my knowledge at present, no," Goldstein replied.
"Are you claiming that there or improper influence upon the elector to these 592 ballots?" the judge asked.
"To my knowledge at present, no," Goldstein said again.
The '592' isn't a typo, by the way - this particular lawsuit concerns just 592 disputed mail-in ballots. As mentioned above, Trump is behind in Pennsylvania by more than 54,000 votes.
US-based legal news site Law & Crime cited legal experts, who said "Goldstein's remarks were typical of a lawyer unwilling to risk sanctions or bar discipline in service of a client".
In other words, they want to keep being lawyers once this is all over.
"Your honour, accusing people of fraud is a pretty big step," Goldstein said. "It is rare that I call somebody a liar, and I am not calling the Board of the [Democratic National Committee] or anybody else involved in this a liar. Everybody is coming to this with good faith."
In a second case this week of a Trump campaign lawyer contradicting his employer, Kory Langhofer in Arizona was presenting hundreds of affidavits of alleged election fraud.
Except even he admitted they were full of lies and "spam", Law & Crime reported. Most were collected via an online form. Though Langhofer said those who made submissions were visited by campaign attorneys and some claims chucked out, he had no way of verifying the truth behind any of those he brought to court.
"This is not a fraud case," Langhofer said, directly contradicting Trump. "It is not a stealing-the-election case."
Instead, he reportedly claimed it was about voting flaws in the system.
NBC News reported on Friday (NZ time) the Department of Homeland Security's audit of the election found it to be the "most secure in American history", and there is "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised".
The New York Times this week called election officials in all 50 states, and not a single one reported any problems with systemic fraud. There have been reports citing sources close the President that it's all theatre designed to keep his supporter base engaged, before he perhaps starts a media network or runs again in 2024, when he'll be 78.
