Photo: The UpTake

Joe Friedberg, the star attorney who gave the closing arguments for Norm Coleman last week in Minnesota’s Senate trial, predicts his client won’t prevail in the election contest without appealing to the state Supreme Court. When the current three-judge panel rules, Friedberg told a local radio audience, ”Franken will still be ahead and probably by a little bit more (than his 225-vote margin in the recount).”

Friedberg was interviewed Wednesday by Ron Rosenbaum on “The Dan Barreiro Show” on KFAN-AM (mp3, starts at 22:22). A partial excerpt:

ROSENBAUM: Joe, are you done?

FRIEDBERG: Yes (laughing), I’m done.

ROSENBAUM: Let me ask you in a different way. Is Norm done?

FRIEDBERG: Well, I think that we’ve been trying this case with the appeal record in mind, and that’s where we’re going, and it’s going to be a very quick appeal, and then I’ll know whether or not it worked.

ROSENBAUM: Well, when you say quick appeal, are you confident that you are going to lose the case in front of the three-judge panel? By losing the case, I mean Norm ends up with less votes.

FRIEDBERG: I think that’s probably correct that Franken will still be ahead and probably by a little bit more. But our whole argument was a constitutional argument, and it’s an argument suitable for the Minnesota Supreme Court, not for the trial court. So we’ll see whether we were right or not.

The dialogue then veered into the background of the equal-protection argument Coleman’s side has asserted, from its past application in elections that featured racial and ethnic discrimination to the Bush v. Gore case in 2000.

Friedberg said the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t expect that case’s circumstances to recur, “where different standards were applying in different electoral precincts … The court didn’t think they’d ever look at another one. Well, hi. We’re here.”

Later:

ROSENBAUM: In point of fact, our system isn’t capable of handling it, right?

FRIEDBERG: No, because frankly, no matter what happens, nobody will ever know who got the — quote — most votes. Nobody will ever know that. …

ROSENBAUM: So we could still be awhile before this thing gets decided?

FRIEDBERG: Yeah, I think that’s clearly true.

Hat tip: Hotline On Call (via MnPublius).

McCain pleaded ignorance about the controversy. “Well to tell you the truth I haven’t seen her remarks and I don’t have any comment until I would have a chance to see it,” the Republican presidential nominee said. “We’ve been out on the campaign trail, obviously. … I can’t comment because I haven’t seen her remarks or even heard anything about them until you brought this up.”

You can listen to the entire interview here.