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(CNN) – President Donald Trump’s effort to reverse the election in which he lost is increasingly undermined by the inanity of his legal claims and is causing some high-profile Republicans to back away, even as most of his party remains quietly silent. middle of its constitutional fire.
The president’s legal team, ruining time-honored traditions of a peaceful transfer of power, is launching far-reaching court challenges and mounting pressure on state election officials. His advisers stoke a political storm seemingly designed to destroy Joe Biden’s presidency before it begins and to protect Trump from the historic humiliation that comes with losing an election after just one term.
The show has some high-level Republicans ready to call for time out. “It’s over,” Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan said on CNN’s “Inside Politics” on Sunday. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a frequent critic of Trump, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump’s behavior was similar to that seen in a “banana republic.” And even Trump’s friend, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, speaking on ABC News’s “This Week,” called attorney Rudy Giuliani and his cohorts “national shame.”
A critical point, however, may be approaching in the confrontation between the administration and the president-elect team over Trump’s refusal to initiate a transition, with voting certifications due Monday in Michigan and in most Pennsylvania counties. .
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If local officials move forward despite interference from a White House shedding unsubstantiated allegations of massive fraud, they will effectively confirm once again that Biden achieved the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Thus, Trump’s position will become less defensible even if he refuses to walk away from the false claims that he won on November 3.
But Republican officials in Michigan are especially trying to delay certification by creating a partisan deadlock at the state canvassing board, which could lead to an even more serious constitutional showdown in the key state.
Trump’s attempts to discard millions of legally cast votes to dishonestly win a second term unfolded as the official leading the covid-19 vaccine effort warned on CNN Sunday that a proper transition would be preferable, given the vital task of rapidly inoculating tens of millions of Americans.
“Of course, fluency is what we are all looking for and therefore it would be better,” Vaccine Czar Moncef Slaoui said in “State of the Union.” Slaoui also delivered encouraging news that the US could achieve a sufficient level of immunity through vaccines by May, offering hope of a return to normal life even as infections and rising death toll herald the months. darkest parts of the pandemic and fears are mounting that Thanksgiving trips will lead to an even more dire outbreak of cases.
But as Biden, who has to raise his own money to prepare his administration as Trump is withholding millions in federal funds, moves forward with the appointment of several key Cabinet members this week, his team warned that the transition stalemate could have serious consequences.
“What we’re looking for is access to real-time information on what’s going on with vaccine distribution and vaccine development and all the plans to move forward,” Jen Psaki, senior advisor to the transition team, told Jake CNN’s Tapper.
The president-elect is set to nominate Antony Blinken as secretary of state, people familiar with the matter told CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Dan Merica on Sunday. Biden is scheduled to make his first round of cabinet announcements on Tuesday.
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Trump’s legal team turns against itself
Yet the president and his self-proclaimed “elite strike force” legal team are more interested in amplifying his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud than in working in the best interest of all Americans to facilitate Biden’s assumption of power. The campaign’s legal tactic took a fatal blow on Saturday when a federal judge blatantly accused them of failing to provide evidence to support a bold request to invalidate millions of votes in Pennsylvania.
“This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, without filing in the operative complaint and without supporting evidence,” Judge Matthew Brann wrote in a ruling issued Saturday.
Giuliani filed an ultra-lengthy appeal with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals Sunday in an approach increasingly disconnected from reality. His team is asking judges to effectively disenfranchise millions of Americans without offering admissible evidence of fraud.
Attorney Sidney Powell is also pushing an absurd theory that pro-Trump Republican Governor of Georgia Brian Kemp and other Republican officials are involved in a conspiracy with the CIA, China, Cuba, the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez, and the Democrats. to fix the voting machines to deprive Trump of victory.
On Sunday night, Giuliani and another Trump attorney, Jenna Ellis, sought to distance themselves from Powell, saying she was not a member of the team even though they both appeared with her at an unhinged press conference in Washington last week and Trump previously said that she was on the team.
In his own statement Sunday night, Powell said he agreed he was not part of the campaign’s legal team, but added that “we” are preparing to file an “epic” lawsuit this week.
In the hall of mirrors where Trump’s legal team operates, a stinging reprimand from a judge is simply interpreted as validation of a legal strategy steeped in conspiracy theories, lies and paranoia. Giuliani received Brann’s shameful humiliation not as confirmation of a ridiculous case, but as a decision that “turns out to help us in our strategy to quickly get to the US Supreme Court.”
The outlandish nature of such claims is forcing some high-profile Republicans to say enough of Trump’s destructive and democracy-polluting behavior is enough.
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Hours after Trump’s legal defeat on Saturday, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who is protected from being a top priority by Trump supporters as he is not running for another term in 2022, said the decision by Brann, “a conservative Republican long overdue, “it meant the president had run out of legal options and congratulated” President-elect Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris. “
Christie, who helped the president prepare for this year’s debates, said that despite all the strange claims that Giuliani’s team is making in court, they do not present evidence of fraud when they go before a judge.
«I have been a supporter of the president. I voted for him twice, but elections have consequences and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn’t happen, ”said Christie, an ABC contributor.
Upton, the Michigan congressman, told CNN’s Dana Bash that “the voters have spoken. I mean, here in Michigan, it was a 154,000-vote margin for President-elect Biden, and no one has presented any evidence of fraud or abuse… It’s not too thin a margin. “
He pointed to Saturday’s statement by Republican Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who ranks third in the House of Representatives, who said Trump should respect “the sanctity of our electoral process” if he cannot prove his claims in court.
Hogan, a frequent critic of Trump, said in “State of the Union” that “it is time for them to stop fooling around. It gets weirder every day. And frankly, I am ashamed that more people in the party are not saying something. The Maryland governor’s comments earned him a reprimand on Twitter from the president.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer, a Trump ally, did not openly break with the president, but said a transition should begin. And on “Fox News Sunday,” former Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah said that while he hoped that Trump, whom he has staunchly supported, would eventually prevail, the White House should “loosen that money” that Biden needs to execute his transition and secure the continuity of the government.
Michigan moves
Michigan, a battlefield that left with Trump in 2016 but where Biden won by more than 150,000 votes this year, will be in the spotlight again Monday when a key Republican on the state’s canvassing board is expected to vote in. against certifying the election.
Republican Rep. Paul Mitchell of Michigan has said one of the two Republican members on the board, Norman Shinkle, will vote against the certification until an investigation is completed, CNN’s Tapper and Annie Grayer reported. Despite producing affidavits alleging wrongdoing in Wolverine’s status, the Trump campaign has not produced evidence that has been upheld in court.
The chances that the election will be certified on Monday now depend on the vote of the other Republican member of the canvassing board, Aaron Van Langevelde. Failure to certify the election could leave the dispute in the hands of Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or the state Supreme Court.
Trump and his aides have put considerable pressure on local politicians in Michigan to thwart Biden’s victory. The president summoned two members of the Republican leadership from the state legislature to the White House on Friday. But they came out to say that they have not been given any information that changes the outcome of the elections.
In Pennsylvania, where Biden’s margin is more than 81,000 votes, a majority of the county Boards of Elections are expected to meet Monday to certify their election results.
Philadelphia is expected to meet Monday or Tuesday depending on a pending lawsuit filed in state court that attempts to delay certification. The counties send the results to Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, who will award the 20 state electoral votes to the winner.
Cascading certification deadlines and ongoing court changes mean that Trump’s already slim hopes of overturning the election results are getting tinier by the day.
