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Before any votes were cast or counted Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe started spending money to put together election-related challenges. Glenn Youngkin has recently taken the lead in polling. And it may be that McAuliffe may need to overturn election results, after all.

 McAuliffe spent nearly $60,000 to engage Marc Elias, a lawyer known for making legal challenges to election results. 

Elias was formerly a partner at the Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie. They represented the Hillary Clinton campaign hired in 2016.

Some of Elias’ work included creating the infamous now-proven fictitious Christopher Steele dossier. The dossier is one of the keys to starting the Russia investigation.

 Republicans have accused Elias of a smear campaign using the dossier. And of lying about the Clinton campaign's role in both funding and giving the dossier to the FBI. It is not known if Elias has been interviewed by the DOJ in the still-active Durham investigation.

McAuliffe's campaign spent money to hire the Elias Law Group a month ago, as the polls showed that the race was getting closer. Elias started the end of August with an announcement that “Prominent elections law attorney Marc Elias and a team of 13 other Perkins Coie LLP lawyers are leaving the BigLaw firm to form a practice.”

McAuliffe and Elias also claimed that Stacey Abrams' actually won her 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race.

Elias business is to overturn election results

Elias has represented Democrats in efforts to contest several elections. Going into the 2020 election, he represented Democrats challenging a Texas law barring "straight-ticket voting." 

House Republicans accused Elias of having a "serious conflict of interest" when he represented Iowa Democratic candidate Rita Hart. He worked to overturn the results of her close loss to Republican Rep. 

GOP members of the House Administration Committee said that Elias had a conflict because he and Perkins Coie,  where he worked at the time, also represented half of the Democratic committee members who would be deciding the case. 

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote that "There are a host of election lawyers but McAuliffe selected an attorney accused of lying to the media, advancing rejected conspiracy theories, and currently involved in a major federal investigation that has already led to the indictment of his former partner." 

"McAuliffe may be preparing to challenge any win by Republican Glenn Youngkin," Turley tweeted. 

Both McAuliffe and his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, have publicly pledged to "absolutely" accept the results of the election. And agreed they will not try to overturn election results after they are certified.