Trump Corruption

Pittsburgh’s CBS News affiliate reports: A federal appeals court in Philadelphia on Friday rejected an effort led by a Republican congressional candidate to block about 9,300 ballots that arrived after Election Day. The three-judge panel, led by Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Brooks Smith, noted the “unprecedented challenges” facing the nation this year, especially the “vast disruption” caused by the COVID-19 …

NBC News reports: President Donald Trump is scheduled to make public remarks on Friday afternoon, his first public comments since Joe Biden was projected the winner in the presidential race — snapping the longest stretch of silence in his presidency. The Rose Garden appearance is his first comments since Nov. 5th and is slated to focus on Covid-19 vaccines. Trump …

Mediaite reports: In many, many public appearances and campaign events in the past few years, Trump would fire up the audience by talking about that stunning election night and recounting in detail how he won some key states that shocked the media. After CNN called the Georgia race on Friday, Brianna Keilar ran a montage of all the times Trump …

Law & Crime reports: The morning after a brutal hearing in which a lawyer for outgoing President Donald Trump’s campaign distanced himself from voter fraud allegations, the legal team hastily declared its case moot. The move followed a day of embarrassing stumbles in a case that began as a way to test Republicans’ baseless “Sharpiegate” conspiracy theory in court. During …

TechDirt reports: Immediately following Election Day, the Trump campaign opened its own voter fraud hotlines. People who thought they observed voting fraud were encouraged to call the campaign or submit sworn statements via a handful of websites. Both offerings were immediately swamped by pranksters and other non-fans of Trump, tying up phone lines and filling the webform coffers with useless …

ABC News reports: Donald Trump is claiming credit for how secure the election was, while simultaneously pushing baseless claims of massive fraud in the race. A group of federal, state and local election officials said in a statement released yesterday that last week’s election was “the most secure in American history.” So Trump is simultaneously requesting praise for the integrity …

The New York Times reports: Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, the law firm leading the Trump campaign’s efforts to cast doubt on the presidential election results in Pennsylvania, abruptly withdrew from a federal lawsuit that it filed days earlier on behalf of President Trump. “Plaintiffs and Porter Wright have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if …

Mediaite reports: Ordinarily, this would be a relatively pedestrian setting-the-record-straight instance for morning television. But the fact that Doocy is directly countering Fox News colleague Sean Hannity, and President Trump, is a rather remarkable moment for the pro-Trump morning show. “I looked into it,” Doocy opened, correcting the record. “With that Dominion software, five counties in Michigan and Georgia had …

The New York Times reports: As a next step, Mr. Trump is talking seriously about announcing that he is planning to run again in 2024, aware that whether he actually does it or not, it will freeze an already-crowded field of possible Republican candidates. And, Republicans say, it will keep the wide support he showed even in defeat and could …

The Washington Post reports: On Thursday, six American service members were killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in Egypt. Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in North Florida, contributing to severe flooding. The number of Americans infected with the novel coronavirus continued at a record-setting pace, sending the stock market tumbling. At the White House, President Donald Trump …

Law & Crime reports: A Donald Trump-appointed federal judge on Thursday dismissed a libel lawsuit filed by the president’s re-election campaign, which alleged that CNN intentionally published false statements about the administration’s solicitation of election assistance from foreign governments. The decision marks yet another legal defeat for the president in the week since he lost the election to Democratic challenger …

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board: Amid a flurry of lawsuits in battleground states — including Nevada — Mr. Trump has yet to admit defeat. It’s possible that he’ll never offer an official concession to Joe Biden. The president’s campaign is certainly within its rights to request recounts or challenge what it believes are improprieties. If GOP legal efforts …

The New York Times reports: Dominion Voting Systems, which makes software that local governments around the nation use to help run their elections, is now at the center of baseless claims that “software glitches” led to mistakes in vote tallies in Michigan and Georgia last week. The Dominion software was used in only two of the five counties that had …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Thursday unleashed on Fox News, retweeting a dozen messages attacking the network and sharing one himself lamenting that Fox “forgot the Golden Goose” that made them successful. The president also retweeted a dozen different accounts that promoted conservative networks as alternatives to Fox News. Most of those accounts had very few followers and had …

CNN reports: Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford said Wednesday that he will intervene if the Trump administration has not allowed President-elect Joe Biden access to presidential daily intelligence briefings by the end of the week, one of the first rights of a presidential candidate after winning the election. “There is no loss from him getting the briefings and to be …

The Hill reports: White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday referred questions back to the White House during a Fox News interview where she appeared as a campaign adviser. McEnany, who has taken on an increased role as a campaign surrogate in recent weeks, would not answer a question about whether President Trump has considered allowing President-elect Joe Biden …

The Washington Post reports: There is widespread alarm among congressional Republicans at how President Trump this week abruptly replaced Pentagon leaders with political allies, and sent signals he might do the same in the intelligence community, but for now lawmakers are refraining from overtly criticizing the moves for fear doing so could harm the party’s chances of holding on to …

Politico reports: On Monday, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows gathered senior aides on a call. One of his goals: to plot the conservative policy moves they could push through in their final 10 weeks on immigration, trade, health care, China and school choice. Even as President Donald Trump refused to concede to President-elect Joe Biden, Meadows was asking …

Karl Rove writes for the Wall Street Journal: Mr. Trump is now pursuing legal challenges in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, and there will be an automatic recount in Georgia, given Mr. Biden’s 0.29-point lead there. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is correct that Mr. Trump is “100% within his rights” to go to court over concerns about fraud …

CNN reports: A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages. Traditionally, the State Department supports all communications for the President-elect, which is why many countries began sending messages to State over the …