Pennsylvania Republican senator Pat Toomey tells Donald Trump to let transition to Joe Biden begin and GOP Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker calls stalling 'wildly inappropriate'
More and more Republicans are encouraging Donald Trump to let the transition to Joe Biden begin as the president continues to pursue legal action in the battleground states but has shown no proof of voter fraud.
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, a prominent member of the Republican Party, and the Republican Governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, are joining the growing number of GOP calls for Trump to concede the election.
'We're on a path it looks likely Joe Biden is going to be the next president of the United States,' Toomey told Pittsburgh's Action News 4. 'It's not 100% certain but it is quite likely. So I think a transition process ought to begin.'
'And you know, if it turns out that the unlikely scenario actually comes about and it turns out President Trump is determined to have won this election after all, then the transition, of course, becomes moot, and it expires and it evaporates,' Toomey said. 'But I think that's not the likely outcome, so I think it should begin.'
And Baker said it was 'wildly inappropriate' for the Trump administration to stall the transfer of power.
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, a prominent member of the Republican Party, and the Republican Governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, are joining the growing number of GOP calls for Trump to concede the election
His comments came after Attorney General Bill Barr instructed the Justice Department to probe any 'substantial allegations' of voter fraud. The Trump campaign has pushed allegations of voter fraud but has shown no proof of any.
'This latest move to employ the Department of Justice in all of this is so wildly inappropriate and stalling an orderly transition process especially at a time like this is equally unacceptable,' Baker said in a statement Tuesday.
'I can't think of a worse time to stall a transition than amid a deadly pandemic that the federal government continues to own primary responsibility for responding to,' he added.
A handful of prominent Republicans, including former President George W. Bush, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and Maine Sen. Susan Collins have acknowledged Biden as the likely winner of the election.
But some of the president's biggest allies on Capitol Hill are standing behind him.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy have encouraged the president's accusations.
The New York Times contacted election officials in every state on Monday and Tuesday to ask about evidence of illegal voting. None reported any major voting issues.
'The 2020 general election was one of the smoothest and most well-run elections that we have ever seen, and that is remarkable considering all the challenges,' Ben Hovland, a Democrat appointed by Trump to serve on the Election Assistance Commission, which works closely with officials on election administration, told the Associated Press.
In its latest lawsuit, the Trump campaign sued in Michigan to try and stop the state from certifying its votes, which Biden won.
Judges have tossed out several of the Trump campaign's lawsuits, and legal experts say the litigation has very small chance of changing the election outcome.
Biden is expected to exceed the 270 electoral votes needed to win the Electoral College. He was winning the national popular vote by at least 5 million votes of the 107 million votes cast, with some states still counting ballots.
Joe Biden is expected to exceed the 270 electoral votes needed to win the Electoral College and is winning the national popular vote by at least 5 million votes of the 107 million votes cast
President Donald Trump continues to claim election fraud but has shown no proof of his allegations
The president continues to sound the drumbeat of election fraud as proof fails to materialize.
On Twitter Wednesday, Trump railed against 'corruption & dishonesty' in the election process. Twitter flagged his tweet as containing disputed information about the election.
Meanwhile, Emily Murphy, the head of the General Services Administration and a Trump appointee, has yet to sign the letter of 'ascertainment' - which acknowledges the winner of the presidential election and formally starts the transition process.
The letter would give the Biden team access to the federal agencies - Biden has 4,000 jobs to fill - and it would give them access to the $6.3 million in federal funds put aside for the transition.
Biden's transition team said Murphy's inaction was preventing them from having government office space, including access to a secure room to discuss classified material. And they cannot begin background checks of top cabinet nominees that require top-secret access.
His transition has released the names of agency review teams that will facilitate the transfer of power.
The GSA has given no indication of when it will sign off on the transition process.
The last time the transition process was delayed was in the 2000 presidential election, when the results dragged out over legal battles in Florida. As soon as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of George W. Bush, the transition process began.
Biden said Tuesday the transition process is going forward on his end.
'First of all, we are already beginning the transition. We're well under way,'he said. 'And the ability for the administration in any way — by failure to recognize our win does not change the dynamic at all and what we're able to do.'
'Nothing is going to stop us,' he added.
STATE-BY-STATE: WHERE TRUMP IS SUING AND HOW IT'S GOING
PENNSYLVANIA
BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 47,620
On Monday the Trump campaign filed their big shot at overturning all mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, claiming that Democratic and Republican counties did not administer them in the same way; instances of fraud; and that poll watchers could not see them being counted. On that basis, they say, the results should not be certified on November 23
The case faces an uphill struggle. The Supreme Court has already allowed mail-in ballots to be issued in Pennsylvania, and the claim of poll watchers not seeing them being counted had failed before when a Trump lawyer last Friday agreed that a 'non-zero number' of Republicans had observed the count in Philadelphia.
The new suit provided no actual evidence of fraud. It did include a claim by an Erie mailman that he had heard his supervisors talking about illegally backdating ballots; he was said to have recanted that claim when questioned by U.S. Postal Inspectors.
Trump's campaign last Wednesday filed a motion to intervene in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging a decision from the state's highest court that allowed election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Tuesday's Election Day that were delivered through Friday.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday night ordered county election boards in the state to separate mail-in ballots received after 8 p.m. EST on Election Day.
Pennsylvania election officials have said those ballots were already being separated.
The justices previously ruled there was not enough time to decide the merits of the case before Election Day but indicated they might revisit it afterwards.
Alito, joined by fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said in a written opinion that there was a 'strong likelihood' the Pennsylvania court's decision violated the U.S. Constitution.
Pennsylvania's Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar has said late-arriving ballots are a tiny proportion of the overall vote in the state.
Rudy Giuliani unveiled a 'witness' to his claims - a Republican poll watcher - on Saturday but the man, Daryl Brooks, has not been included in any legal papers. He was previously convicted of exposing himself to underage girls.
ARIZONA
BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 12,813
Trump's campaign said last Saturday it had sued in Arizona, alleging that the state's most populous county incorrectly rejected votes cast on Election Day by some voters.
The lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court in Maricopa County, said poll workers told some voters to press a button after a machine had detected an 'overvote.'
The campaign said that decision disregarded voters' choices in those races, and the lawsuit suggested those votes could prove 'determinative' in the outcome of the presidential race.
It is a modification of an earlier suit which was submitted and then withdrawn claiming that Trump voters were given sharpies to mark their ballots and claiming this made them more prone to error. The 'sharpie-gate' claims have n basis in fact, Arizona's secretary of state says.
NEVADA
BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 36,726
A voter, a member of the media and two candidate campaigns sued Nevada's secretary of state and other officials to prevent the use of a signature-verification system in populous Clark County and to provide public access to vote counting.
A federal judge rejected the request on Friday, saying there was no evidence the county was doing anything unlawful.
No new suits have been lodged so far.
Trump campaign officials have also claimed evidence that non-residents have voted but have not sued.
GEORGIA
BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 14,111
The Trump campaign on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in state court in Chatham County that alleged late-arriving ballots were improperly mingled with valid ballots, and asked a judge to order late-arriving ballots be separated and not be counted.
The case was dismissed on Thursday. No new suits have been filed. The state is going to a recount.
The two Republican senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, called for the GOP Secretary of State to quit claiming there were election irregularities Monday. They offered no evidence and he scoffed: 'That's not going to happen.'
MICHIGAN
BIDEN MAJORITY TRUMP NEEDS TO OVERTURN: 148,645
On Monday Trump filed a federal case alleging fraud and then later a separate demand that the votes are not certified on November 23.
In the first case, one witness - possibly misgendered by the Trump lawyers - claimed that they had been told by another person that mysterious ballots arrived late on vehicles with out of state plates and all were for Biden; that they had seen voters coached to vote for Biden; and that they were told to process ballots without any checks.
It also included poll watchers and 'challengers' who said they could not get close enough to see what was happening.
A federal judge has yet to issue any response on when and how it will be looked into.
Trump's campaign last Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Michigan to halt the vote count in the state. The lawsuit alleged that campaign poll watchers were denied 'meaningful access' to counting of ballots, plus access to surveillance video footage of ballot drop boxes.
On Thursday, Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens dismissed the case, saying there was no legal basis or evidence to halt the vote and grant requests.
U.S. POSTAL SERVICE
The U.S. Postal Service said about 1,700 ballots had been identified in Pennsylvania at processing facilities during two sweeps on Thursday and were being delivered to election officials, according to a court filing early Friday.
The Postal Service said 1,076 ballots, had been found at its Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center. About 300 were found at the Pittsburgh processing center, 266 at a Lehigh Valley facility and others at other Pennsylvania processing centers.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington is overseeing a lawsuit by Vote Forward, the NAACP, and Latino community advocates.
Sullivan on Thursday ordered twice-daily sweeps at Postal Service facilities serving states with extended ballot receipt deadlines.
The judge plans to hold a status conference on Monday.