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Following a painful legal defeat in Pennsylvania Federal Court, US President Donald Trump is facing mounting pressure from fellow Republicans to halt his efforts to overturn the outcome of the US presidential election and get him to admit the defeat of Democrat Joe Biden.
Since Biden was declared the winner two weeks ago, Trump has filed a series of lawsuits and lobbied massively to prevent states from certifying the election results.
So far, their attempts in court to thwart certification processes have failed in Georgia, Michigan and Arizona.
On Saturday, Federal Judge Matthew Bran, a Republican nominated by former President Barack Obama, rejected a lawsuit brought by the Trump campaign aimed at disqualifying millions of votes cast by mail in Pennsylvania.
The judge who issued the ruling described the case as “unsubstantiated legal arguments and allegations based on speculation.”
For Trump to have any hope of staying in the White House, Trump needs to cancel the 81,000 votes that Biden is running in Pennsylvania. The state is due to begin certification procedures on Monday.
Trump’s lawyers have vowed to challenge the result immediately, but lawyers arguing against him in court say he doesn’t have time to do so.
The chairman of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights said Christine Clark: “This matter should put a nail in the coffin of any other attempt by President Trump to use federal courts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.”
Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress began to shed those around him.
Republican Sen. Pat Tommy said the ruling eliminated any chance of a court victory in Pennsylvania and called on Trump to acknowledge the electoral defeat.
Earlier, Liz Cheney, a member of the House Republican leadership team, called on Trump to respect “the sanctity of our electoral process” if he was not successful in court.
Trump refuses to accept defeat
Biden won 6 million more votes than Trump in the November 3 election, and he also garnered 306 votes in the electoral college to Trump’s 232, the votes that determine who will be sworn in on January 20.
Biden has spent the last few weeks preparing to take office, though the Trump administration has refused to provide the necessary funding and security clearances.
Critics say Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat has serious implications for national security and efforts to combat the Corona virus, which has killed nearly 255,000 Americans.
To stay in office, Trump will need to somehow reverse election results in at least three major states, which has not happened in American history.
A tally in Georgia confirmed that Biden had won there, and officials confirmed the result on Friday. The Trump campaign said Saturday night that it would again request a recount.
And in Wisconsin, election officials have criticized Trump campaign volunteers for delaying a partial recount that is unlikely to change the reality of Biden’s victory.
With the recount and court appeals falling short of their goals, Trump is now pressuring Republican-led state legislatures to dismiss the results and declare him the winner.
“We hope that the courts and / or legislative bodies … will have the courage to do whatever it takes to preserve the integrity of our elections and of the United States of America itself,” Trump wrote on Twitter after the Pennsylvania ruling.
On Friday, two of the top Republicans in the Michigan legislature were summoned to the White House. After the meeting, they said they had seen no evidence prompting them to intervene. Biden is ahead of Trump in Michigan by 154,000 votes.
Election officials across the country say there is no evidence of major electoral fraud, and the Trump administration itself has described the election as “the safest in American history.”
But Trump’s accusations continued to fuel the ire of his hardline Republican base. Half of Republicans believe the election was stolen from Trump, according to a Reuters / Ipsos poll, and his supporters have organized rallies across the country to protest the results.
