Republican Senate signals it will confirm Biden Cabinet

A series of GOP senators told POLITICO they’d back the president-elect’s nominees — as long as they’re “mainstream.”

Senate Republicans are signaling they will confirm most of President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet picks in January — a rare bright spot for a White House that may clash with a GOP majority for years to come.

Many Republicans won’t even publicly concede that Biden will be the next president while President Donald Trump fights to overturn the election results. But a critical mass of GOP senators said in interviews that Biden has the right to his Cabinet, indicating he may be able to staff his administration largely to his liking.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said that he believes a “president ought to be able to pick his or her Cabinet barring someone who is out of the mainstream of either party,” and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) gives “great latitude” to presidents to make appointments. Those two plus Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) give Biden a working majority on Cabinet picks, even if Democrats fall short in a pair of Georgia runoffs and the GOP holds a 52-48 majority. Continue reading.

Trump’s Attempts to Overturn the Election Are Unparalleled in U.S. History

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The president’s push to prevent states from certifying electors and get legislators to override voters’ will eclipse even the bitter 1876 election as an audacious use of brute political force.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election are unprecedented in American history and an even more audacious use of brute political force to gain the White House than when Congress gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency during Reconstruction.

Mr. Trump’s chances of succeeding are somewhere between remote and impossible, and a sign of his desperation after President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. won by nearly six million popular votes and counting, as well as a clear Electoral College margin. Yet the fact that Mr. Trump is even trying has set off widespread alarms, not least in Mr. Biden’s camp.

“I’m confident he knows he hasn’t won,” Mr. Biden said at a news conference in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday, before adding, “It’s just outrageous what he’s doing.” Although Mr. Biden dismissed Mr. Trump’s behavior as embarrassing, he acknowledged that “incredibly damaging messages are being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions.” Continue reading.

Democrats demand briefing from GSA chief on delay in ascertaining Biden’s win

Administrator Emily Murphy has delayed the relatively routine step as President Donald Trump contests the election results.

Four senior House Democrats are demanding that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy brief them Monday on the reason she has yet to ascertain Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election, warning that her answers will determine whether they intend to haul her to Capitol Hill for a public hearing, along with other senior General Services Administration officials.

“We have been extremely patient, but we can wait no longer,” said House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, in a four-page letter joined by Reps. Gerry Connolly and Mike Quigley.

Biden’s team can’t begin accessing federal resources to aid the transition until Murphy makes an official “ascertainment” of his victory, a relatively routine step based on the unofficial but clear results of a presidential election. As Trump has contested the election results, Murphy has withheld a decision despite enormous pressure from Democrats to begin the process. Trump recently praised her on Twitter, saying she’s doing a “great job. Continue reading.

Trump Tax Write-Offs Are Ensnared in 2 New York Fraud Investigations

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Inquiries into the president and his businesses, one criminal and one civil, are now looking at tax deductions taken on consulting fees. Some of the payments appear to have gone to Ivanka Trump.

Two separate New York State fraud investigations into President Trump and his businesses, one criminal and one civil, have expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to Ivanka Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The inquiries — a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and a civil one by the state attorney general, Letitia James — are being conducted independently. But both offices issued subpoenas to the Trump Organization in recent weeks for records related to the fees, the people said.

The subpoenas were the latest steps in the two investigations of the Trump Organization, and underscore the legal challenges awaiting the president when he leaves office in January. There is no indication that his daughter is a focus of either inquiry, which the Trump Organization has derided as politically motivated. Continue reading.

Federal judge rejects Trump ally’s bid to block election certification in Georgia

The judge, who was appointed by the president, delivered a withering assessment of the suit filed by a prominent attorney.

Another bid by an ally of President Donald Trump to overturn the results of this month’s election was roundly rejected in court on Thursday, as a federal judge appointed by Trump turned down a bid to block the certification of President-elect Joe Biden as the victor in Georgia.

At the conclusion of a three-hour virtual hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Steven Grimberg delivered a withering assessment of the suit that a prominent attorney, Lin Wood, filed to try to stop officials from finalizing a tally that has Trump trailing Biden by more than 12,000 votes.

Grimberg said it was clear that, as an individual voter, Wood lacked legal standing to mount the challenge to Georgia’s election procedures. But the judge — a former prosecutor whom Trump nominated last year — also emphasized that evidence of improprieties seemed limited to isolated cases and far short of what would be needed to justify a federal judge stepping in to alter the state’s election results. Continue reading.

Trump Targets Michigan in His Ploy to Subvert the Election

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In a brazen step, the president invited Republican state leaders in Michigan to the White House as he and his allies try to prevent the state from certifying Joe Biden’s clear victory there.

President Trump on Thursday accelerated his efforts to interfere in the nation’s electoral process, taking the extraordinary step of reaching out directly to Republican state legislators from Michigan and inviting them to the White House on Friday for discussions as the state prepares to certify President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. the winner there.

For Mr. Trump and his Republican allies, Michigan has become the prime target in their campaign to subvert the will of voters backing Mr. Biden in the recent election. Mr. Trump called at least one G.O.P. elections official in the Detroit area this week after she voted to certify Mr. Biden’s overwhelming victory there, and he is now set to meet with legislators ahead of Michigan’s deadline on Monday to certify the results.

The president has also asked aides what Republican officials he could call in other battleground states in his effort to prevent the certification of results that would formalize his loss to Mr. Biden, several advisers said. Trump allies appear to be pursuing a highly dubious legal theory that if the results are not certified, Republican legislatures could intervene and appoint pro-Trump electors in states Mr. Biden won who would support the president when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 14. Continue reading.

Trump campaign legal fight keyed to court of public opinion

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The Trump campaign’s effort to change the outcome of the presidential election increasingly is moving from a legal setting to the court of public opinion, where the campaign continues to sow doubt about the contest’s integrity and hopes to win over public officials with a role in certifying the results.

The shift in focus coincides with the appointment of Rudy Giuliani to head the campaign’s legal effort. The former New York mayor’s strategy reportedly entails a longshot bid to pressure Republican lawmakers in key battleground states to approve pro-Trump electors rather than certify their state’s popular vote.

Although the campaign has little success to show in the courts, at least by any traditional measure, the flood of post-election litigation is likely a major contributor to the perception among Trump’s supporters that the vote was tainted by widespread fraud. About half of Republicans believe Trump rightfully won the election, but that it was stolen from him by widespread fraud, and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans said the election was rigged, according to a Reuters poll. Continue reading.

Survivor of the Jonestown Massacre compares Trump to Jim Jones: ‘The rhetoric is so similar’

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It was 42 years ago, on November 18, 1978, that cult leader Jim Jones encouraged a mass suicide in Guyana — where more than 900 of his followers died after drinking Flavor-Aid (a drink similar to Kool-Aid) that had been laced with poison. KRON-TV in Northern California, on the 42nd anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre, discussed the tragedy with some of the survivors — and one of them compared Jones to President Donald Trump.

Jones’ cult, the People’s Temple, was founded in San Francisco, where he persuaded hundreds of his followers to join him in a settlement he set up in the South American country of Guyana — and he named that settlement, Jonestown, after himself. Yulanda Williams, a People’s Temple member, went to Jonestown with her husband and her one-year-old daughter. Williams, who avoided the Jonestown Massacre, explained to KRON why Trump reminds her so much of Jones.

Williams told KRON, “I sometimes listen to our commander in chief — he sounds so much (like him), and the rhetoric is so similar to that of Jim Jones. But it is absolutely eerie for me, and I think that over 240,000 people have lost their lives due to COVID. When we say Jonestown is the most tragic incident of a massacre of people, I say don’t forget about the commander in chief who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.” Continue reading.

Biden maintains lead in Georgia after completion of hand recount

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President-elect Joe Biden held onto his lead over President Trump in Georgia on Thursday after the state completed a days-long hand recount of nearly 5 million votes.

With all of the state’s 59 counties reporting their results, Biden holds a 12,284-vote edge over Trump, only slightly narrower than the roughly 14,000-vote lead the president-elect held in the initial vote tally.

“Georgia’s historic first statewide audit reaffirmed that the state’s new secure paper ballot voting system accurately counted and reported results,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a statement Thursday. “This is a credit to the hard work of our county and local elections officials who moved quickly to undertake and complete such a momentous task in a short period of time.” Continue reading.

Fox News reporter expertly debunks Rudy Giuliani’s nonsensical election claims: ‘Simply not true’

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On Thursday, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, held a press conference to discuss the Trump campaign’s legal battle against the 2020 presidential election results. Giuliani has claimed that Trump, not President-elect Joe Biden, is the real winner and that his client was the victim of widespread voter fraud. But when Fox News correspondent Kristin Fisher reported on the press conference, she slammed Giuliani as being “light on facts.”

Fisher, speaking from the White House, told her colleague Dana Perino: “That was certainly a colorful news conference from Rudy Giuliani, but it was light on facts. So much of what he said was simply not true or has already been thrown out in court.”

The Fox anchor added that Giuliani opened the press conference by making a “really bold and baseless claim” and saying that “a lot of this alleged nationwide voter fraud he’s referring to all came from one centralized place.” Continue reading.