Trump news: President loses Pennsylvania appeal as he backtracks on vow to leave peacefully
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Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results suffered a severe blow on Friday when a judge he had appointed in Pennsylvania ruled against his fraud appeal.
A blistering ruling from Third District’s Stephanos Bibas – a Trump-appointed judge – said “free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy.”
“Charges of unfairness are serious,” he said in his ruling on Friday. "But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."
One of his lawyers, Jenna Ellis, said they will take their case to the Supreme Court.
Earlier on Friday Mr Trump, currently playing golf, tweeted en route to his Virginia course that Joe Biden must first “prove” that all of his “ridiculous” 80 million votes were obtained legally, before claiming the White House.
Mr Trump’s admission on Thursday that he would leave if Mr Biden won the electoral college made headlines worldwide - despite the fact that it should not have been necessary to state.
The president on Friday appeared irritated by the response, and tweeted: “Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous “80,000,000 votes” were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!”
The president’s legal team, led by Rudy Giuliani, are continuing to challenge results in the courts, but their hopes - faint from the start - are fading. They have had more than 35 cases dismissed so far.
And here’s what he said yesterday…
Trump is currently on his golf course in Sterling, Virginia
He left the White House at 10:18am for the half-hour drive to his course.
This afternoon, after golf, he’s expected to travel to Camp David in Maryland.
Donald Trump loses Pennsylvania appeal
Trump loses Pennsylvania ‘election fraud’ appeal
In a blow to Donald Trump’s spurious legal campaign to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, a federal appellate court has rejected his appeal in a Pennsylvania lawsuit.
White House clarifies that when Donald Trump said he’s be in Georgia on Saturday, he did not mean tomorrow…
From the pool report:
Judd Deere clarified that "when the President said he would be going to Georgia on Saturday, he means Saturday, Dec. 5, not this Saturday."
Trump’s lawyers say they will take the Pennsylvania battle to the Supreme Court
Michael Flynn thankful for being pardoned
Donald Trump pardoned his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, on the eve of Thanksgiving.
Mr Flynn was convicted of lying to the FBI about his contact with Russians.
On Thanksgiving, he said he was grateful for his freedom.
“I say thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he wrote in a 1,000 word piece.
“For the first time in more than four years and because of my fearless attorney, Sidney Powell, the Guardian Angel of American Justice, and thousands of good people with endless energy rallying together on my behalf, I breathe freedom and liberty today.”
Mr Flynn’s piece mentions the commander in chief once, when he defends him by saying no one should be “viciously targeted, maligned, smeared and threatened such has been the experience of my family and I. Not you and your loved ones, not me nor President Trump, our First Lady, and the Trump children.”
Trump calls the Georgia Secretary of State an ‘enemy of the people’
Donald Trump has called Republican Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, an “enemy of the people”.
The president made the remarks during a fractious press conference on Thanksgiving, where he claimed without evidence that massive voter fraud had taken place in the state.
Mr Trump said: “You're not allowed to harvest, but I understand the secretary of state, who is really an enemy of the people, the secretary of state, and whether he's Republican or not, this man, what he's done, supposedly he made a deal and you'll have to check this, where she is allowed to harvest but in other areas they're not allowed.”
Graig Graziosi reports:
Trump calls the Georgia Secretary of State an ‘enemy of the people’
Mr Raffensperger says that the president threw him ‘under the bus’
A new international issue for Biden’s in-tray
One of Joe Biden's most pressing international issues is likely to be the fallout from today's assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist.
American and Israeli intelligence have long said that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 59, was behind secret programmes to design an atomic warhead.
He was believed to be the number one target of Mossad.
Fakhrizadeh was shot and killed on Friday as he was traveling in a vehicle in northern Iran, Iranian state media reported.
It is bound to set off a sharp reaction in Iran, as did the American attack on 3 January that killed Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian major general who ran the elite Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, has condemned the killing "as an act of state terror".
Mr Biden has pledged to reengage with Iran when he takes over the US presidency in January, despite longstanding opposition from Israel. The killing of Fakhrizadeh will certainly make that more tricky.
Trump is now at Camp David
He arrived at 2:38pm, flying from his golf course via helicopter.
And, he’s still tweeting about election fraud - in a strangely worded claim…
Has Joe Biden changed his mind about Michele Flournoy for secretary of defense?
Ms Flournoy was considered a shoo-in to lead the Pentagon, and would have been the first woman to do so.
But some have been surprised that while other key posts - secretary of state, national security adviser, UN ambassador, treasury - have been announced, he is yet to name his new secretary of defense.
Axios is now reporting that a new person is under consideration - Lloyd Austin.
The former head of US Central Command, Mr Austin retired from the Army in 2016.
He would need a congressional waiver to serve, just as President Trump's first defense secretary, James Mattis, required as a recent military retiree.
He would be the first Black secretary of defense, if appointed.
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