Biden begins transition plans as Trump refuses to concede

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office says the state’s recount could start as soon as tomorrow. 

“We’re making the final decision on that today,” Gabriel Sterling, Voter Implementation Manager with the office said. 

Under Georgia law, because the margin in total vote tallies is less than 0.5%, the Trump campaign had two business days after Friday’s certification to request a recount. They requested that recount on Saturday. 

The recount will be taxpayer-funded, and will be conducted in each Georgia county using high speed ballot scanners.   

There is no statutory deadline for the recount to be completed under Georgia law. Sterling said it will take between 1,800-2,200 man hours, across the state, to complete the recount.   

Remember: President-elect Joe Biden, who was declared the winner last Friday as the state certified the results, is ahead by 12,670 votes or 0.2% over President Donald Trump in Georgia.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris just announced the members of their foreign policy and national security team. 

In a Transition Team news release they listed the following:

Biden and Harris will formally introduce and announce the team tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. ET, according to the transition team.

Many of their nominees will make history. Here’s some more information on them:

Biden will tap former US Secretary of State John Kerry as a special presidential envoy on climate. Kerry is a champion of the Paris climate agreement, which Trump formally withdrew from. Kerry was Biden’s pick to co-chair a “unity task force” on climate change with allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders after the Democratic presidential primary.

The transition team also confirmed CNN’s previous reporting that Biden will pick Antony Blinken to be secretary of state, Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be ambassador to the United Nations and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser.

Blinken, Biden’s top foreign policy aide, previously served in a deputy role during the Obama administration. Sullivan is another veteran foreign policy hand, and Thomas-Greenfield is a career diplomat with deep experience in the foreign service.

Sullivan and Thomas-Greenfield tweeted shortly after the announcement:

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman on Monday said that the Keystone state’s November election was conducted fairly and accurately amid the state’s certification deadline. 

Fetterman, a Democrat, was joined by Philadelphia County Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican, to push back against voter fraud and voting irregularity claims from the Trump campaign and Republicans. 

When asked by Bolduan how pending litigation is going to affect the outcome of the election, Fetterman responded that he expects Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes to be awarded to President-elect Joe Biden, who CNN has already projected as the winner of the state. 

 “Our Electoral votes are going to go to him,” Fetterman said. “And the Trump campaign is going to perhaps continue to lie about the conditions on the ground. But it’s not going to change anything. Everyone knows how this movie is going to end, including the President.” 

Philadelphia, the largest county in Pennsylvania, is expected to certify its election results by the end of the day, according to Al Schmidt, a Republican city commissioner who is among those responsible for overseeing the election process.  

Philadelphia County represents the largest swath of votes in Pennsylvania and leaned heavily in President-elect Joe Biden’s favor. 

Republicans in Pennsylvania meanwhile are asking a state court to step in on an emergency basis to stop the vote certification there.

The lawsuit was filed by GOP Rep. Mike Kelly and others on Saturday. It alleges that Pennsylvania’s allowance of universal, no-excuse mail-in balloting was unconstitutional. The lawsuit seeks an immediate halt to the certification process and an invalidation of all mail-in ballots.

After first congratulating President-elect Joe Biden for his win over the weekend, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey criticized President Trump for reaching out to state lawmakers in his attempt to block or delay the certification process in key states as part of a long-shot effort to overturn his election defeat through the Electoral College. 

“The idea that a sitting president would try to … I don’t know pressure, cajole, persuade state legislators to dismiss the will of their voters and select their own group of electors and send them to the Electoral College … that’s completely inconsistent with any kind of truly democratic society so that shouldn’t be going on in my view,” Toomey told CNBC on Monday morning.

The Pennsylvania Republican reiterated his belief that the President has exhausted his legal options in his home state, adding that he thought the same was true in Georgia and Michigan.

“Among the most fundamental aspects of our Republic and a democratic system is to accept the outcome of elections,” Toomey said.

He noted that he has spoken with his Senate colleagues and has reached out to the White House about his concerns.

Asked if he felt he was a lone voice among his conference, Toomey said, “I don’t like to characterize how my colleagues feel about these things but I can assure you I am not alone in this view among Republican senators.” He did not say who he had talked with or elaborate further.

Despite his criticism, Toomey said he did not regret supporting Trump for reelection, warning of a “very, very scary and radical shift to the left” in the Democratic party.

Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, called for the presidential transition to formally begin despite President Trump continuing to deny the results of the election.

In an op-ed he wrote for The Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday, Portman said:

“I voted for President Trump, was a co-chair of his campaign in Ohio, and I believe his policies would be better for Ohio and the country. But I also believe that there is no more sacred constitutional process in our great democracy than the orderly transfer of power after a presidential election. It is now time to expeditiously resolve any outstanding questions and move forward,” he added.

Portman expressed his belief that if Trump’s legal challenges extend beyond certification deadlines, it could cause “unprecedented uncertainty and raise serious constitutional questions.”

“Donald Trump is our president until Jan. 20, 2021, but in the likely event that Joe Biden becomes our next president, it is in the national interest that the transition is seamless and that America is ready on Day One of a new administration for the challenges we face,” Portman said, noting Biden should have access to intelligence briefings and briefings on vaccine distribution plans.

However, Portman did not actually acknowledge that Biden is the President-elect.

150 business leaders in New York have written an open letter urging the Trump Administration to move forward with a transition.

The letter, published under the Partnership for New York City, warns that this delay is making democracy grow weaker and “puts the public and economic health and security of America at risk.”

The business leaders urged respect for the Democratic process adding, “there is not a moment to waste in the battle against the pandemic and for the recovery and healing of our nation to begin.”

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to announce his Treasury Secretary nominee and other top White House economic advisers likely right after Thanksgiving, officials familiar with the matter say.

In a history-making decision he’s expected to select the first woman to fill the post.

The two leading contenders for the post are former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, and current Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, two people familiar with the matter tell CNN.

For Treasury, Brainard is seen as too corporate by some on the left, officials said, and Yellen would face smoother sailing in confirmation in a Republican-controlled Senate.

The Cabinet picks are being paired in key portfolios, with the diplomacy announcements coming Tuesday, followed by economic and health-focused posts in December.

WATCH:

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Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, called on his party to denounce what he called “insane conspiracy theories” from Trump attorney Sidney Powell.

On Monday, Kinzinger retweeted a tweet from the Republican National Committee’s official Twitter account featuring a video of Powell speaking at the Trump campaign’s Thursday press conference at RNC headquarters, during which the lawyer baselessly alleged, among other things, that the CIA and the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez were involved in rigging the 2020 election. 

“Now would be a great time to denounce this,@gop how embarrassing. Our party needs to be better than giving credence to these insane conspiracy theories,” Kinzinger wrote.

Some more context: On Sunday night, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, two members of the Trump campaign’s legal team, attempted to distance themselves from Powell, saying she was “practicing law on her own” and not a member of the team, even though she participated in their press conference and the President had previously announced on Twitter she was joining the team.

President-elect Joe Biden just announced two more key members of his White House senior staff.

In a press release, he named two Deputy Directors of Legislative Affairs who will serve under Louisa Terrell, who was announced last week as director. 

Here’s who he appointed:

Both appointees are women of color, further fulfilling Biden’s campaign promise to shape an administration that reflects the diversity of the country.  

The steady stream of staff announcements indicates that Biden has no intention of allowing President Trump’s refusal to concede slow down his own transition process.

He is expected to make his first Cabinet announcements Tuesday, including longtime aide Antony Blinken as secretary of state.

Rep. Mike Kelly speaks during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday, March 3.

Republicans in Pennsylvania are asking a state court to step in on an emergency basis to stop the vote certification there. The move comes just hours before most counties are expected to officially certify and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar signs off.

The lawsuit was filed by GOP Rep. Mike Kelly and others on Saturday. It alleges that Pennsylvania’s allowance of universal, no-excuse mail-in balloting was unconstitutional. The lawsuit seeks an immediate halt to the certification process and an invalidation of all mail-in ballots.

Now, with 65 of the 67 counties in the state expected to have meetings shortly to certify their election results, plaintiffs are asking the state board to immediately issue an injunction, writing: “the Court must intervene immediately in order to prevent further, irreparable injury from the resulting wrongs of an election conducted pursuant to an unconstitutional and invalid mail-in voting scheme.”

Philadelphia County is expected to meet Monday or Tuesday, depending on this pending lawsuit. According to the Washington Post, Berks County does not intend to certify until Wednesday.

This year there were 2,612,091 mail-in ballots cast for the general election in Pennsylvania.

The initial request for an injunction by Rep. Kelly and other plaintiffs was filed hours before a federal judge in Pennsylvania wrote a scathing opinion dismissing a Trump campaign lawsuit. That suit was filed by Trump’s legal team led by Rudy Giuliani, seeking to stop certification. 

Judge Matthew Brann, a longtime Republican nominated by President Obama, compared the lawsuit to “Frankenstein’s monster…haphazardly stitched together,” and slammed the request to disenfranchise nearly seven million voters in a complaint littered with “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”

The Trump campaign has appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals which has granted expedited review of the appeal.

The Circuit Court set a deadline for the Trump campaign to submit its brief by 4 p.m. ET Monday, with the reply brief due Tuesday by 4 p.m. ET.  The Circuit Court is still determining if there will be oral arguments.

A group of former national security officials from past Republican administrations are calling on Republican leaders, particularly those in Congress, to demand that Trump stop subverting the election and begin the transition to Biden.

“President Trump’s continued efforts to cast doubt on the validity of the election and to interfere in state electoral processes undermine our democracy and risk long-term damage to our institutions,” the statement continues.

The former officials say that encouragement of Trump’s tactics is a risk to democracy. “By encouraging President Trump’s delaying tactics or remaining silent, Republican leaders put American democracy and national security at risk. “

The list includes Tom Ridge, Michael Hayden, Chuck Hagel, Richard Armitage and Ken Wainstein.

Remember: Trump has refused to concede the race and blocked his administration from taking any of the administrative steps typically taken in a transfer of power.

This includes allowing the General Services Administration  to declare that there is a president-elect — a move that triggers the transition process. Major new organizations, including CNN, projected Biden will win the presidential election. 

Two Michigan Republican sources are seeking to calm an increasingly tense situation bubbling in Michigan ahead of the state board of canvasser’s meeting Monday afternoon where there is growing concern that two Republican board members will vote against certification, and upend a typically uneventful process. 

Even with reports of one of the two Republican board members, Norman Shinkle, already signaling a vote against certification, these sources still believe certification will happen today. 

But neither source has said they have spoken directly to Aaron Van Langevelde, the other Republican board member who has not signaled how he would vote ahead of the meeting.

 One GOP source told CNN that today’s vote will be “fine.”

The source also tamped down concerns that the legislature would get involved, even if both Republican board members blocked the vote, and implied that a block in certification would likely be resolved in court.

“To be honest, even if they deadlocked it would be fine. The legislature wants no part of that coup idea,” the source said. 

A separate, county-level Republican official echoed a similar sense of resolve to CNN, stating that the “drama” and “freaking out” happening ahead of the vote has no bearing on what will actually happen.

The source predicted that the board would certify in a 3-1 or even 4-0 vote as well.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference on Friday, November 20, in Atlanta.

The Georgia State Election Board passed two new rules this morning ahead of the Senate runoff election scheduled for Jan. 5.  

The first rule extends the use of secure, monitored, drop boxes that will be available 24/7 through the Jan. 5 runoff. Voters can use these drop boxes to deliver their absentee ballots – a rule that was also in place during November’s general election. Counties are required to use video surveillance to monitor the drop boxes for security.     

The second rule will require counties to begin processing absentee ballots one week and a day before election day. While this new rule makes it clear that counties have to start scanning absentee ballots a week and one day before election day, none of the absentee ballots are tabulated until the polls close on Jan. 5, per Georgia law. Georgia’s larger counties are authorized to start processing and scanning absentee ballots two weeks in advance of Jan. 5. 

The five-member election board is chaired by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. According to his office, at least 762,000 absentee ballots have been requested for January’s Senate runoff so far.

What’s at stake: The expected twin Georgia runoff elections in January will determine control of the Senate. This will encapsulate the structural challenge facing Democrats as they battle to secure a majority in the chamber that could determine the shape of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Certification is usually a formality, but President Trump is trying to block or delay the process in key states as part of a long-shot effort to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden.

Monday is the day when the Michigan State Board of Canvassers is scheduled to meet to certify the state’s results. The board’s certification of election results is what triggers electors to be selected, which is what gets sent to the Electoral College.

But the Trump campaign and its allies are continuing to try to intervene.

There has been no evidence of widespread fraud nationwide. Michigan Secretary of State spokesperson Tracy Wimmer told CNN that they expect the board of state canvassers to certify at their scheduled meeting on Monday.

Here’s what you need to know about today’s meeting and where things stand in the state’s election certification process:

Read more here.

Diane Gallagher reports:

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President Trump’s National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien on Monday downplayed concerns about the potential negative consequences of a delayed transition and claimed that those concerns did not come up in his meetings in Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

He acknowledged that “(t)here’ll be a transition if the courts don’t rule in President Trump’s favor.”

The Trump team’s attempts to undermine the votes of the people in court have been overwhelmingly fruitless. Experts have raised concerns that the delay in ascertainment and the start of the formal transition could have serious implications for national security and the safety and wellbeing of the American people.

“There’ll be a transition if the courts don’t rule in President Trump’s favor, and it will be a professional transition,” O’Brien continued. “But President Trump has not exhausted his legal remedies. We’re a country based on the rule of law and the President has taken his case to court, as he has every right to do as an American citizen, and so those cases will get resolved. And once they’re resolved and the courts rule, then we’ll move forward from there.”

“But we’re not concerned about those issues and we haven’t had any concerns raised by foreign counterparts,” the national security adviser said, adding that “they are impressed with how many Americans went out to vote.”

 “They are impressed at the resilience of our institutions, and they know that the President – many of these leaders have gone through numerous transitions, and some would start early, some start late, some are from an incumbent party to a second term, some are a change of party,” he said. “So, they’re familiar with these issues, they’re not concerned about them, and I think they’re impressed by the resilience of American democracy.”

Emily Murphy, general services administrator, speaks in Washington in 2019.

As the only obstacle between President-elect Joe Biden and the formal start of the presidential transition, General Services Administrator Emily Murphy is struggling with the weight of the presidential election being dropped on her shoulders, feeling like she’s been put in a no-win situation, according to people who have spoken to her recently.

This was never a position that Murphy thought she would find herself in, the people said.

But as the government official in charge of signing off on the election result, President Trump’s refusal to concede the election has thrown Murphy into the middle of a political firestorm.

Facing mounting pressure from both sides, and even death threats, the sources say Murphy is working to interpret vague agency guidelines and follow what she sees as precedent to wait to sign off on the election result, a process known as “ascertainment” that would allow the official presidential transition to begin.

Still, Murphy’s stalled sign-off is one of the more confounding decisions made since the election, since it’s clear Biden won and Trump’s legal challenges won’t change the outcome. Biden’s team has warned the delay has real-world consequences to national security and their Covid-19 response.

Sources who spoke to CNN could not say whether Murphy has been in touch with the White House on the issue.

“She absolutely feels like she’s in a hard place. She’s afraid on multiple levels. It’s a terrible situation,” one friend and former colleague of Murphy’s told CNN. “Emily is a consummate professional, a deeply moral person, but also a very scrupulous attorney who is in a very difficult position with an unclear law and precedence that is behind her stance.

“She’s doing what she believes is her honest duty as someone who has sworn true allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and the laws that govern her position,” the friend added.

Murphy declined an interview request for this story, and GSA declined to comment.

Read more here.

President Donald Trump holds a briefing at the White House on November 20.

A federal judge dealt a death blow to the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s win of the presidency on Saturday, by dismissing a closely watched lawsuit that sought to invalidate millions of Pennsylvania votes.

“It is not in the power of this Court to violate the Constitution,” Judge Matthew Brann of the US District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania wrote on Saturday in a withering decision, hours after the final round of filings in the case came in.

The judge wholeheartedly rejected the Trump campaign’s attempt to throw out the Pennsylvania vote, noting that Biden has won the state and results will be certified by state officials on Monday. Biden has a margin of more than 81,000 votes in the state.

Though the case was always extremely unlikely to succeed, President Trump’s backers and legal team — and particularly his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani — had pinned their hopes on the federal judge in Pennsylvania giving some credibility to their suspicions of fraud and entertaining Trump’s attempt to overturn the popular vote for Biden.

But Brann, a longtime and well-known Republican in Pennsylvania, refused.

Shortly after the decision came down, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania congratulated Biden as the President-elect, breaking from party leaders and a vast majority of congressional Republicans who continue to back Trump’s efforts to challenge the results.

This was essentially the last major case seeking to throw out or block enough votes that could swing a key state in Trump’s favor, and Brann’s decision on Saturday is at least the 30th loss or withdrawal of a case from the Trump campaign and its allies since Election Day. There have only been two wins in court for Republicans, about very small numbers of votes.

Read more here.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris hold a news conference in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 16.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are set to hold a virtual meeting in Wilmington, Delaware, with the US Conference of Mayors on Monday, the transition announced.

This follows Biden’s virtual meeting with a group of bipartisan governors last week.

In a news conference Thursday after meeting with the Republican and Democratic governors — part of Biden’s effort to work around the Trump administration’s refusal to allow his transition team access to federal agencies, including those coordinating the coronavirus response — Biden lambasted Trump’s actions, saying that Americans are “witnessing incredible irresponsibility.”

The result, he said, is an “incredibly damaging message is being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions.”

President Trump meanwhile has no public events on his schedule again today as his campaign continues to contest election results in court. 

Trump has had no public events for the majority of time since he lost the election.

Antony Blinken, left, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

President-elect Joe Biden is poised to nominate Antony Blinken to serve as secretary of state, people familiar with the matter told CNN, elevating a longtime foreign policy adviser as Biden makes his first round of Cabinet announcements Tuesday.

Incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain said earlier Sunday that Biden intended to begin revealing members of his Cabinet Tuesday. Blinken is expected to be among the first nominations, people familiar with the matter said, with Biden intent on sending a signal that rebuilding America’s alliances is one of his top priorities.

Bloomberg was first to report that Biden intends to name Blinken.

Blinken served in the Obama administration as deputy secretary of state and principal deputy national security adviser. He also served as national security adviser to then-Vice President Biden.

In that time, he played a central role in much of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, including how to respond to Russia’s incursion into Crimea in 2014, the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden in 2011 and the fight against ISIS.

If confirmed by the Senate, Blinken will be tasked with repairing relationships with close allies across the globe, many of whom have bristled at President Donald Trump’s confrontational style and attempts to remake the United States’ international responsibilities at part of his “America First” campaign pledge.

The longtime foreign policy adviser will also be asked to address a State Department dramatically altered under Trump, including staffing up an organization that was subject to a hiring freeze and combating a baseless view pushed by Trump that the agency was part of a “deep state” working against the Republican leader.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware and former UN ambassador and national security adviser Susan Rice had been among the other contenders for the post.

Former Obama administration official Jake Sullivan is the leading contender to be national security adviser.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield is the leading contender for the position of ambassador to the United Nations, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, which is also expected to be announced Tuesday.

Thomas-Greenfield, an African-American woman with a lengthy career in foreign service, previously served as assistant secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs. The selection of Thomas-Greenfield would help Biden honor his pledge to build a diverse administration.

Axios first reported the possibility of Thomas-Greenfield being nominated.

The transition team has also already assigned advisers — known as sherpas — to help guide their nominated Cabinet members for the confirmation process, one source said.

Read more here.