Onslaught of lawsuits continues
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s campaign said yesterday it would file a lawsuit to stop the battleground state of Michigan from certifying its election results, as congressional Democrats said a witness who had raised accusations of ballot tampering in Pennsylvania recanted his allegations.
The Michigan lawsuit would request that election results in the state not be certified until it could be verified that votes were cast lawfully, Trump campaign attorney Matt Morgan said.
It was the latest in a string of lawsuits the Trump campaign has filed since Democrat Joe Biden captured the presidency.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that there was widespread voting fraud.
Judges have already tossed out lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia brought by the campaign, and legal experts say Trump’s litigation has little chance of changing the outcome of the election.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, said on Sunday that the Senate Judiciary Committee would investigate claims of voting irregularities in Pennsylvania after receiving an affidavit from a United States Postal Service worker, who claimed illegal backdated postmarks may have been added to some late mailin ballots.
Yesterday, Democrats on the House of Representatives Oversight Committee said postal worker Richard Hopkins had recanted his allegations, according to the Postal Service internal watchdog. That office declined to comment.
The committee said Hopkins did not explain why he made up the allegations.
The Trump campaign provided
Hopkins’ affidavit to Graham, who sent a letter to the Justice Department and the FBI requesting they launch an investigation.
The campaign filed suit on Tuesday in federal court in Pennsylvania to halt certification of that state’s results, alleging lax oversight of mailin voting.
The Democratic Party secured control of the US House of Representatives yesterday, winning at least 218 seats, the Associated Press reported.
The Democrats secured the majority with three winners: incumbents Kim Schrier in Washington, Tom O’Halleran in Arizona and Jimmy Gomez in California.
A day after Trump fired his defence secretary, the White House installed a Trump loyalist in a key Pentagon post yesterday and promoted another who has falsely called former president Barack Obama a terrorist.
Mark Esper was replaced by Christopher Miller, who had been the director of the National Counterterrorism Centre. The Pentagon said Kash Patel, who was the top counterterrorism adviser on the White House National Security Council, would be Miller’s chief of staff.
In the wake of Esper’s departure, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser resigned, allowing that post to be filled by Anthony Tata, a retired Army brigadier general who has called Obama ‘‘a terrorist leader’’. — Reuters