Republicans sidestep Donald Trump push to strongarm states after court challenges fail

Donald Trump’s efforts to stop key states from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory have hit another hurdle.

US President Donald Trump looks down during an event on lowering prescription-drug prices in the White House on Friday US time, before meeting Michigan state legislators. Picture: AFP

President Donald Trump was bunkered in the White House lobbying Republican leaders in states that voted for Democrat Joe Biden to reject the result as court challenges to his election defeat continued to fail.

Mr Trump, 74, met the two most senior elected Republicans from Michigan, a state he lost to Mr Biden by more than 156,000 votes, after his allies urged state legislatures to step in and overturn the result.

He is said to be planning to speak with senior Republicans in Pennsylvania, where he lost by more than 80,000 votes.

But The Wall Street Journal reported President Trump’s effort to stop key states from certifying Mr Biden’s election victory hit another hurdle on Friday US time after the two Michigan politicians he had summoned to the White House said they saw no reason why the state’s results would change.

Donald Trump arrives to speak to media at the White House on Friday. Picture: AFP

Mr Trump’s aim is to stop Michigan from certifying its vote on Monday, his lawyers have said, though state officials say they plan to proceed. The Trump legal team has said it is hoping some states that have Republican-controlled state legislatures will appoint electors who would vote for Mr Trump in the Electoral College next month even though Mr Biden won those states.

Mr Trump insisted on Friday that he won the election but took no reporter questions at an event on drug pricing. Later that afternoon, he met Michigan state Senate majority leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield at the White House.

In a joint statement after the meeting, the two legislators said they “have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors, just as we have said throughout this election”.

They said they had used the meeting to make the case for Michigan to receive additional federal funds to fight COVID-19. They also walked the President through the election-certification process in the state, according to a person familiar with the matter. The President didn’t directly pressure them to assist in his effort to block the vote from being certified, the person said.

Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, asked what the President wanted to discuss, she said: “This is not an advocacy meeting. There will be no one from the campaign there. He routinely meets with politicians from all across the country.”

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany speaks during a press briefing on Friday. Picture: AFP

Two weeks after the election was called for Mr Biden, the President continues to claim that he was the real winner even as his court attempts to block certification in key states fall flat. His meetings with state Republicans are regarded as an extraordinary last-ditch attempt to apply pressure to switch the election in his favour.

Mr Biden, who turned 78 on Friday, has been welcomed by numerous world leaders but Mr Trump’s refusal to admit defeat has mired the country in political drama and paralysed the transition. The election is not over until the electoral college votes on December 14 and this is accepted by Congress in a usually formal session on January 6.

David Woods sells the Sunday Detroit Free Press last weekend reporting that Joe Biden had been projected President-elect. Picture: AFP

Most Republican senators remained silent about Mr Trump’s machinations but one loyalist broke ranks after a 90-minute press conference held on Thursday by Rudy Giuliani, the President’s personal lawyer, where he and two other lawyers made wild claims of fraud unsupported by evidence.

Joni Ernst, 50, from Iowa, defended Mr Trump’s right to challenge results in court but said there needed to be proof. She called accusations by Sidney Powell, one of the President’s lawyers, that politicians in both parties rigged the vote “absolutely outrageous”.

Senator Ernst added: “That is an offensive comment for those of us that do stand up and represent our states in a dignified manner … I’ve worn our nation’s uniform to protect the values and freedoms that our nation espouses and to have that accusation just offhandedly thrown out there just to confuse our voters across the United States, I think that is absolutely wrong.”

Mitt Romney, a senator from Utah who has run for the White House three times and is the President’s most outspoken Republican critic in the chamber, said: “Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the president has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election. It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president.”

Tucker Carlson, a usually Trump-loyal Fox News host, also took aim at Ms Powell for refusing to corroborate her claims that US politicians were paying to rig votes using a computer system developed by the former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013.

Mr Carlson said he repeatedly asked Ms Powell for evidence of the “single greatest crime in American history”.

“When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her,” Mr Carlson said. “When we checked with others around the Trump campaign, people in positions of authority, they told us Powell has never given any evidence either.”

The crisis deepened when Andrew Giuliani, 34, Mr Guliani’s son, who was at Thursday’s press conference where none of the Republican team wore masks, announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Georgia’s result was signed off by Brad Raffensperger, 65, its Republican secretary of state, after a hand recount confirmed Mr Biden’s victory. “I’m a proud Trump supporter,” he said, but added: “The numbers reflect the verdict of the people.”

Ben Sasse, a Republican senator from Nebraska who has become a critic of Mr Trump, spoke out against Mr Giuliani’s unsupported claims. “Wild press conferences erode public trust. So no, obviously Rudy and his buddies should not pressure electors to ignore their certification obligations under the statute. We are a nation of laws, not tweets.”

Mr Biden is considering legal action to force the Trump administration to co-operate with his transition team.

Striking a very different note from the President, he issued a statement marking Transgender Remembrance Day. “At least 37 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed this year, most of them black and brown transgender women. It’s intolerable,” he wrote. “To transgender and gender-nonconforming people across America and around the world: from the moment I am sworn in as president of the United States, know that my administration will see you, listen to you and fight for not only your safety but also the dignity and justice you have been denied.”

WILD CLAIMS RUN OUT OF PUFF

Increasingly wild claims of election fraud made by President Trump and his lawyers in public bear little relation to the actual words of their lawyers before judges (writes David Charter).

Rudy Giuliani, the President’s lawyer, called the alleged blocking of Republican count observers “a gross miscarriage of the process … an absolute fraud” at a press conference.

In court, under threat of perjury charges, he and other Republican lawyers adopted a different tone.

At the start of a Pennsylvania case that he argued personally this week, Mr Giuliani said: “The best description of what we’re alleging is widespread, nationwide voter fraud … This is not an isolated case.”

Near the end of the hearing, however, under questioning from the judge, Mr Giuliani said: “I have to correct myself. The charge is the conduct. It doesn’t plead fraud. It pleads a plan or scheme.”

Kory Langhofer, a Trump campaign lawyer, appeared in court in Arizona alleging that some poll workers “incorrectly rejected” some votes, the Arizona Republic reported.

Mr Langhofer argued: “This is not a fraud case. We are not alleging fraud. We are not saying anyone is trying to steal the election.” Instead he claimed there were “good faith errors” by some poll workers. The judge dismissed the case.

At another case in Pennsylvania, lawyers asked a judge to issue an order to stop the count by alleging that Republican observers had been barred. Under questioning, however, Jerome Marcus, for the Trump campaign, conceded that Republicans had “a non-zero number of people in the room”.

Jonathan Goldstein, another lawyer for the Republicans, admitted in another Pennsylvania case that he was not alleging fraud in the 592 votes he sought to disqualify in Montgomery county.

The judge asked him: “In your petition, which is right before me - and I read it several times - you don’t claim that any electors or the board of the county were guilty of fraud, correct?”

Mr Goldstein replied: “Your honour, accusing people of fraud is a pretty big step. And it is rare that I call somebody a liar, and I am not calling anybody else involved in this a liar. Everybody is coming to this with good faith.”

The Times