Since Biden was declared the winner of the Nov.3 election two weeks ago, the Republican president has launched a series of lawsuits and mounted a lobbying campaign to prevent states from certifying their vote totals.
Trump’s critics, including Democrats and some Republicans, have accused him of trying to undermine faith in the American electoral system and delegitimize Biden’s victory by promoting false claims of widespread voter fraud. Biden will take office on January 20.
“Fight hard against the Republicans,” Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday morning as he pressed his unsubstantiated narrative on voter fraud.
So far, attempts to thwart vote tally certification have failed in Georgia, Michigan and Arizona courts.
On Saturday, Federal District Judge Matthew Brann, a Republican appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama, dismissed a similar effort in Pennsylvania, writing that the case brought by Trump’s attorneys alleging voter fraud amounted to “tense legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations “.
“This statement, like Frankenstein’s monster, has been stitched together at random,” Brann wrote.
Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress are now breaking ranks, although many, including the most important, have not.
Republican Sen. Pat Toomey said Brann’s ruling “exhausted all plausible legal options” for Trump in Pennsylvania, and urged the president to “accept the outcome of the election.” Toomey also congratulated Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and referred to them as “dedicated public servants.”
Liz Cheney, a member of the Republican leadership team in the House of Representatives, previously called on Trump to immediately present evidence of widespread voter fraud or to respect “the sanctity of our electoral process.”
Ron Klain, Biden’s choice as the incoming White House chief of staff, and other Biden aides were to appear on Sunday morning news programs to give his team’s perspective on the transition process.
For Trump to have any hope of staying in the White House, he needed to somehow surpass Biden’s 81,000-vote margin in Pennsylvania, a state he won in 2016. The state must begin certifying its results Monday.
Trump’s lawyers promised a speedy appeal, but the lawyers who opposed him in court said he didn’t have time.
“This should put the nail in the coffin of any further attempts by President Trump to use the federal courts to rewrite the outcome of the 2020 election,” said Kristen Clarke, chair of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law.
TRUMP REFUSES TO GRANT
Biden received 6 million more votes nationwide than Trump and, more importantly, prevailed 306-232 in the state-by-state Electoral College system that determines the winner of the election. Biden has spent the past few weeks preparing to take office and electing members of his administration, although the Trump administration has refused to provide the usual funding and security clearances for incoming presidents.
Critics have said Trump’s refusal to concede has serious implications for the continuity of national security and for preventing the fight against the coronavirus pandemic that has killed an estimated 256,000 Americans.
To stay in office, Trump would somehow need to overturn election results in at least three large states, a feat unprecedented in American history.
A tally in Georgia only confirmed Biden’s victory there, a state Trump had won in 2016, and officials certified the result on Friday. The Trump campaign said late Saturday that it would request another recount.
In Wisconsin, election officials have criticized Trump volunteers for delaying a partial recount that is not expected to nullify Biden’s victory. Trump also won Wisconsin in 2016.
With counts and lawsuits falling short, Trump is now pressuring Republican-led state legislatures to discard the vote totals and declare him the winner.
“May the Courts and / or Legislatures have … the COURAGE to do whatever it takes to maintain the integrity of our Elections and of the United States of America itself,” he wrote on Twitter after the Pennsylvania ruling.
On Friday, he summoned two top Republicans from the Michigan legislature to the White House. After the meeting, they said they did not see any evidence leading them to intervene. Biden leads Trump in Michigan by 154,000 votes.
Election officials across the country say there is no evidence of significant electoral fraud, and the Trump administration itself has called the election “the safest in US history.”
But Trump’s accusations have continued to ignite his hard-core Republican base. Half of Republicans believe the election was stolen from Trump, according to a Reuters / Ipsos poll, and some supporters have organized rallies across the country to protest the result.
This story has been published from a news agency feed with no changes to the text.
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