[ad_1]
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will move forward Tuesday (Nov 10) with long-term legal challenges over his loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden in last week’s election, as Republican officials at the state and federal levels lined up behind. of the.
Pennsylvania Republican state lawmakers plan to request an audit of the results in the state that gave Biden enough electoral votes to win, a day after US Attorney General William Barr told federal prosecutors to investigate. the “substantial” allegations of wrongdoing.
For months before the election, Trump made repeated claims without providing evidence that the results would be clouded by fraud and has kept those allegations unfounded for the past week.
READ: By refusing to budge, Trump blocks transition cooperation
Justices have thrown out lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia, and experts say Trump’s legal efforts have little chance of changing the outcome of the election.
But the top Congressional Republican, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, lined up behind Trump on Monday, saying he was “100 percent within his right to investigate allegations of wrongdoing,” without citing any evidence.
The dispute is holding back Biden’s work in preparing for the job of governing, as a Trump appointee who heads the office tasked with recognizing the election results has yet to do so.
Biden got the more than 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency on Saturday. He also led Trump in the popular vote by 4.6 million votes Tuesday morning as states continued to count the remaining ballots.
READ: Corporate America says it’s ready to work with Biden
BARR MOVE REQUESTS THE COMPLAINT
Barr’s directive to prosecutors caused the top attorney overseeing the voter fraud investigations to resign in protest.
Barr told prosecutors Monday that the “fanciful or outlandish claims” should not be a basis for investigation, and his letter does not indicate that the Justice Department has discovered voting irregularities that affect the outcome of the election.
But he said he was authorizing prosecutors to “pursue substantial allegations” of irregularities in voting and the counting of votes.
Richard Pilger, who for years has served as director of the Election Crimes Section, said in an internal email that he was resigning after reading “the new policy and its ramifications.”
Previous Justice Department policy, designed to avoid intervening the federal government in election campaigns, had discouraged open investigations “until the election in question has concluded, its results certified, and all electoral counts and contests are concluded.”
READ: How and when will Trump leave office?
Biden’s campaign said Barr was fueling Trump’s unlikely fraud allegations.
“Those are the kinds of claims that the president and his attorneys make unsuccessfully every day, as their claims are mocked in court after court,” said Bob Bauer, senior adviser to Biden.
One of Barr’s predecessors as attorney general, Republican Alberto Gonzales, told CNN on Tuesday that the timing of Barr’s memo was “very, very unfortunate” because it contributes to the perception that the Justice Department was being used for purposes politicians.
“If you ask me, do I think I have seen evidence of widespread fraud, at a level that would nullify the results of this election? No, I have not,” said Gonzales, who served under former President George W. Bush.
REPUBLICANS REMAIN LOYAL
Although some Republicans have urged Trump to back down, the president still had the support of prominent party leaders who have yet to congratulate Biden.
The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit Monday to prevent Pennsylvania officials from certifying Biden’s victory in the battlefield state, where Biden led with more than 45,000 votes.
READ: Comment: Don’t forget a record number of Americans who voted for Donald Trump
He alleged that the state’s vote-by-mail system violated the United States Constitution by creating “an illegal two-tier voting system” in which voting in person was subject to more supervision than voting by mail.
He ran against Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and the boards of elections in Democratic-leaning counties including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Boockvar’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The latest Trump campaign presentation is another attempt to reject legal votes,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said on Twitter.
Pennsylvania State Representative Dawn Keefer planned Tuesday to request a legislative audit of state election results.
Biden, who has begun work on his transition to the White House, will deliver a speech Tuesday defending the Affordable Care Act, the landmark healthcare law popularly known as Obamacare, as the U.S. Supreme Court hears the arguments about a lawsuit backed by the Trump administration. to invalidate it.
Trump and Republicans have repeatedly tried to end the 2010 law passed under President Barack Obama, with Biden as his vice president.
READ: Biden’s camp considers legal action for agency delay in recognizing transition
The Supreme Court defended itself from earlier challenges in 2012 and 2015. The court now has a conservative majority of 6-3 after Trump’s third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, was confirmed last month.
As Biden begins working on his transition, his team is considering legal action over a federal agency’s delay in acknowledging his victory over Trump.
The General Services Administration normally recognizes a presidential candidate when it is clear who won, so that a transition of power can begin.
But that has yet to happen and the law does not specify when the GSA must act. GSA administrator Emily Murphy, appointed by Trump in 2017, has yet to determine that “a winner is clear,” a spokeswoman said.
