Court dismisses Trump’s claim that election was unfair
Afederal appeals court yesterday flatly dismissed President Donald Trump’s claim that the election was unfair and refused to freeze Joe Biden’s win in the key state of Pennsylvania.
In a scathing review of the Trump campaign’s arguments that the president was cheated in his November 3 re-election bid, three appeals court judges unanimously said that allegations of unfairness were not supported by evidence.
“Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so,” the court said.
In appealing a lower court ruling, the Trump campaign claimed discrimination, the judges noted.
“But its alchemy cannot transmute lead into gold,” the court said.
It was the latest in more than two dozen court defeats around the country for the Trump campaign and Republicans who have alleged fraud and other misconduct contributed to the president’s loss.
Trump persists in arguing that Biden’s clear victory is invalid.
Last week a Pennsylvania state court rejected arguments by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that the millions of votes in the state should be thrown out due to fraud.
The judge in that case, however, embarrassed Giuliani by forcing him to admit that none of his precise claims before the court involved fraud or anything more than technical issues in overseeing the vote count.
On Tuesday the Pennsylvania government officially certified Biden’s victory in the state, and the Trump campaign appealed to federal court to have that certification frozen.
But the appeals court said Trump’s campaign had nothing substantial to argue. “Its allegations are vague and conclusory,” the judges said.
“It never alleges that anyone treated the Trump campaign or Trump votes worse than it treated the Biden campaign or Biden votes.”
With Biden’s national lead in the popular vote and the electoral college now virtually unassailable, the court indicated that another appeal, to the US Supreme Court, would go nowhere.
“The campaign has already litigated and lost most of these issues,” the court said.
“The campaign cannot win this lawsuit. It conceded that it is not alleging election fraud.”
Nevertheless, Jenna Ellis, a Trump campaign lawyer who worked with Giuliani on the case, tweeted their intent to appeal.Page
President Donald Trump said for the first time that he would leave the White House if Joe Biden is officially confirmed the winner of the US election, even as he railed against the “rigged” vote.
Trump has made an unprecedented attempt to defy the results of the election by refusing to concede, spreading wild theories about stolen ballots and launching baseless legal challenges that have been thrown out by courts.
Answering his first questions from reporters since the November 3 vote, the president moved closer to accepting that he would serve only one term in office before Biden is inaugurated on January 20.
When asked if he would leave the White House if the Electoral College confirmed Biden’s victory, Trump said, “Certainly I will. And you know that.”
But “if they do, they made a mistake,” he said, adding, “It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede.”
“I think that there will be a lot of things happening between now and (January) 20th,” he said.
The Electoral College, which determines the White House winner, will meet on December 14 to certify Biden’s victory, with Biden receiving 306 votes to Trump’s 232.
“This election was a fraud,”
Trump said, again without providing any evidence during his remarks to reporters at the White House after he spoke to military personnel via video-link on the Thanksgiving holiday.
He described the US voting infrastructure as “like a thirdworld country.”
Earlier in the day he tweeted that “this was a 100% rigged election,” while on Wednesday he called on his Republican supporters “to turn the election over.”
President-elect Biden has said that Americans “won’t stand” for attempts to derail the vote outcome, and urged for Americans to unite to fight the worsening pandemic.
More than 260,000 people have died in the US from Covid-19, with daily death tolls surging to 2,000 in recent days.
Trump’s refusal to concede the election to Biden has added to the countless norms he has torn up during his four years in power.
Supporters suggest he is already eyeing a run for president in 2024.
Trump, 74, is alleging — among other conspiracy theories — that voting machines deliberately deleted millions of his votes, though the government election security agency declared it “the most secure” election in US history.
Under pressure from some senior Republicans, Trump this week ended his blockade of government assistance to ease Biden’s
preparation for assuming the presidency.
Trump said on Thursday he would soon travel to Georgia to campaign ahead of two key runoff elections that will decide which party controls the Senate.
Biden, 78, this week introduced a slate of veteran diplomats and policy-makers who will make up his national security and foreign policy team, saying: “America is back, ready to lead the world.”
He said that in his first 100 days in office, he would tackle the Covid crisis, scrap Trump policies “damaging” the environment and push legislation offering millions of undocumented US residents a route to citizenship.