President-elect Joe Biden will announce the first of his cabinet appointments on Tuesday and is planning a scaled-down inauguration due to the coronavirus pandemic, attendees said Sunday, as he lays the groundwork for his new administration despite the president’s refusal. Donald Trump to concede.
Since Biden, a Democrat, was declared the winner of the November 3 election two weeks ago, the Republican president has launched a series of lawsuits and mounted a lobbying campaign to prevent state officials from certifying total votes, suffering another emphatic legal setback on Saturday in Pennsylvania.
Ron Klain, chosen by Biden as White House chief of staff, again urged that the Trump administration, specifically a federal agency called the General Services Administration (GSA), formally recognize Biden’s victory to unlock resources for the transition process. .
“I hope the GSA administrator does her job,” Klain added, referring to GSA director Emily Murphy.
Biden will take office on January 20.
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“A record number of Americans rejected the Trump presidency, and since then Donald Trump has been rejecting democracy,” Klain told ABC’s “This Week.”
Biden received 6 million more votes nationwide than Trump and prevailed 306-232 in the state-by-state Electoral College system that determines the winner of the election.
The former vice president, who works in his home state of Delaware, has announced a series of selections for positions in the White House. Klain said they “will see the first cabinet elections on Tuesday,” but declined to reveal the options or positions to be filled.
Biden said Thursday that he had chosen a Secretary of the Treasury. Candidates on Biden’s shortlist include former Fed Chair Janet Yellen, current Fed Governor Lael Brainard, Sarah Bloom Raskin, former Fed Governor, and Raphael Bostic, Chairman of the Reserve Bank. Atlanta Federal.
Biden’s allies also indicated that he could announce his selection for secretary of state as early as this week, with former national security adviser Susan Rice and veteran diplomat Antony Blinken among the candidates.
FAILURE IN COURT
Klain said there would be “shortened versions of existing traditions” for Biden’s inauguration. Opening ceremonies and related events often draw large crowds to Washington. Covid-19 cases and deaths are on the rise in many parts of the country amid a pandemic that has killed more than 256,000 people in the United States.
“We know that people want to celebrate. Here’s something to celebrate, ”Klain said. “We just want to try to find a way to do it in the safest way possible.”
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.
“Fight hard against the Republicans,” Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday morning as he pressed his baseless narrative on voter fraud before playing golf in Virginia for the second day in a row.
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Attempts to thwart the certification of vote counts have so far failed in the courts of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Arizona. Federal District Judge Matthew Brann, in dismissing Pennsylvania’s lawsuit on Saturday, compared Trump’s team’s arguments alleging voter fraud to a “Frankenstein monster” that was “stitched up at random” using meritless legal arguments and speculative accusations. .
The Trump campaign issued a statement Sunday distancing itself from Sidney Powell, an attorney who made unsubstantiated allegations of a vast vote-rigging conspiracy at a campaign press conference Thursday.
“Sidney Powell is practicing law on his own,” Trump’s campaign attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in the statement. “She is not a member of Trump’s legal team. Nor is she the president’s attorney in a personal capacity. “
Both Giuliani and Ellis attended Thursday’s press conference alongside Powell. Powell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump campaign also said it was appealing Brann’s decision to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Pennsylvania is expected to certify its election results on Monday.
The Trump campaign has petitioned for another recount in Georgia. A laborious previous manual recount reaffirmed Biden’s victory by a margin of more than 12,000 votes in the southern state, a long-standing Republican stronghold in the presidential election.
‘NATIONAL PREGNANCY’
Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans are now breaking ranks, although many, including the most prominent in Congress, have not.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has served as Trump’s advisor, called the president’s legal team a “national disgrace.”
“They allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they enter the courtroom they are not alleging fraud and they are not arguing fraud,” Christie told ABC “This Week,” adding that “if you are not willing to come forward and present the evidence , it must mean that the evidence does not exist. “
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski tweeted Sunday that “it is time to begin the full and formal transition process,” noting that the courts have so far found Trump’s legal claims without merit and that the lobbying campaign on state legislators ” not only is it unprecedented, it is inconsistent with our democratic process. “
Critics have said that Trump’s refusal to facilitate an orderly transition has serious implications for national security and the fight against Covid-19.
Klain said Biden was denied the intelligence briefings to which he is entitled, FBI background checks on potential Cabinet nominees, and access to agency officials to help develop plans, including preventing delays in the launch of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Jen Psaki, senior advisor to Biden’s transition team, said in “State of the Union” that legal action to force the GSA to recognize Biden “is not our preference.”
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