Judge throws out Coleman’s 11th-hour lawsuit over Franken ad

Via tweets by MinnPost’s David Brauer and KARE-11′s Scott Goldberg, we learn that today Sen. Norm Coleman’s lawsuit against Al Franken’s campaign was dismissed by Administrative Law Judge Barbara Neilson. The complaint, the fourth filed on Coleman’s behalf within days of an election, concerned a campaign ad that said Coleman was “[r]anked the 4th most corrupt senator in Washington,” according to the watchdog group CREW. Neilson wrote that Coleman has “failed to demonstrate probable cause” that Franken’s campaign was in violation of Minnesota statues. Neilson leaves the door open that just maybe Coleman is among the Senate’s most corrupt members.