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WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump will meet with Michigan Republican leaders at the White House on Friday (November 20) as his campaign pursues an increasingly desperate attempt to overturn the November 3 election result after a series of defeats in court.
The latest strategy of Trump’s campaign, as described by three people familiar with the plan, is to convince Republican-controlled legislatures in Biden-won battle states like Michigan to undermine the results.
“Frankly, all elections in all swing states should be annulled and legislatures should make sure voters are selected for Trump,” Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s lawyers, told Fox Business television on Thursday.
President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, won the election and is preparing to take office on January 20, but Trump, a Republican, has refused to budge and is looking for a way to invalidate the results, alleging election fraud. widespread.
READ: Trump’s Election Power Game: Persuading Republican Lawmakers to Do What American Voters Didn’t
Trump’s team is focusing on Michigan and Pennsylvania for now, but even if both states changed the president, he would need another state to revoke his vote to overtake Biden in the Electoral College.
Michigan state legislative leaders, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Speaker of the House of Representatives Lee Chatfield, both Republicans, will visit the White House at Trump’s request, according to a source in Michigan.
The two lawmakers will listen to what the president has to say, the source said. Shirkey told a Michigan news outlet earlier this week that the legislature would not name a second voters list.
“It’s incredibly dangerous that they’re even entertaining the conversation,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, told MSNBC.
“This is an embarrassment to the state.”
SOUNDING THE ALARM
Meanwhile, Biden will meet with Democratic leaders in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday after spending most of the week with advisers. who plan their administration.
Nationally, Biden won nearly 6 million more votes than Trump, a difference of 3.8 percentage points. But the outcome of the election is determined in the Electoral College, where each state’s electoral votes, based primarily on population, are generally awarded to the winner of a state’s popular vote.
READ: Georgia confirms Biden’s victory in the state while completing manual audit of ballots
READ: Wisconsin will carry out a partial recount of votes as Trump, furious, denies defeat
Biden leads by 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 as states work to certify their results at least six days before the Electoral College meeting on Dec. 14.
Legal experts have sounded the alarm at the idea of a sitting president seeking to undermine the will of the voters, though they have expressed skepticism that a state legislature can legally replace its own constituents.
Trump’s attorneys are seeking to take the power to elect electors from governors and secretaries of state and give it to friendly state legislators from his party, saying the U.S. Constitution gives legislatures the highest authority.
Reaching out to state officials represents a change from Trump’s attempts to overturn the result after his campaign failed to gather evidence to back up the president’s claims of widespread voter fraud.
Election officials have said they saw no evidence of any major wrongdoing.
‘TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE’
Trump’s attempts to reverse the outcome through lawsuits and recounts have met with little success.
A manual recount of Georgia’s roughly 5 million votes concluded Thursday, affirming Biden’s victory there, while judges in three states rejected Trump’s campaign offers to challenge the vote count.
Despite the setbacks, the Trump campaign has not abandoned its legal efforts.
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said Thursday he planned to file more lawsuits, accusing Democrats of plotting a “national conspiracy” to steal the election, though he offered no evidence to back up the claim.
Biden called Trump’s attempts “totally irresponsible” on Thursday, though he has expressed little concern that they will prevent him from taking office on January 20.
Biden has spent the week putting together his team. His incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, told CNN on Thursday that Biden would announce more White House officials on Friday, after appointing several high-level staff members earlier this week.
Biden said Thursday that he had selected a Secretary of the Treasury and that he could announce his election next week.
