In video posted on social media, Trump recycles claims

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump stood before a White House lectern and delivered a 46-minute diatribe against the election results that produced a win for Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump called his address, released Wednesday only on social media and delivered in front of no audience, perhaps “the most important speech” of his presidency. But it was largely a recycling of the same allegations of voter fraud that he has been making for the past month.

Attorney General William Barr, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, said the Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the election outcome.

Biden received a record 81 million votes compared to 74 million for Trump. The Democrat also won 306 electoral votes compared to 232 for Trump. The Electoral College split matches Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton four years ago. The Electoral College is scheduled to meet on Dec. 14.

Trump, who spoke from the Diplomatic Room, kept up his pushback against the election even as state after state certifies its results and as Biden presses ahead with shaping his Cabinet in advance of his inauguration on Jan. 20.

About an hour after it was posted, Trump’s video had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook and shared by more than 60,000 Facebook users. Both Facebook and Twitter flagged the president’s posting as problematic, with Twitter noting that Trump’s claims about election fraud are disputed.

Meanwhile, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, urged Michigan Republican activists on Wednesday to pressure the Gop-controlled Legislature to “step up” and award the state’s 16 electoral votes to Trump.

GOP legislative leaders have said they will not try to replace Michigan’s electors.

And, in Arizona, Maricopa County offered to review 2,500 duplicated ballots. Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, who filed a lawsuit contesting the election results, is looking for irregularities among the nearly 28,000 ballots in Maricopa County that were duplicated by elections officials because voters’ earlier ballots were damaged or couldn’t be tabulated.

A trial has been scheduled for Thursday in Ward’s lawsuit.