Donald Trump is planning a series of rallies at which he will show off obituaries of people who his team say have voted, according to a report.
The president has made it clear that he does not intend to concede defeat to Joe Biden, despite him being judged by independent media analysts to have no way of winning the election.
He has promised to fight every step through the courts.
On Sunday night Axios reported that the Trump campaign was mobilizing its troops and readying for war.
‘We want to make sure we have an adequate supply of manpower on the ground for man-to-man combat,’ one adviser told Axios.
In addition to the rallies, designed to highlight specific legal challenges, Trump is gathering what was described as ‘a campaign-style media operation’.
Donald Trump, pictured at a rally on November 1, is intending to fight on, Axios reports
Trump has been whipping up his supporters with claims of votes being stolen
Trump’s supporters protest outside the state capital in Lansing, Michigan on Sunday
The media team will be headed by Tim Murtaugh, a former television reporter in Virginia who joined the Trump campaign in February 2019, and now serves as communications director.
One advisor told the site that Murtaugh’s group will issue ‘regular press briefings, releases on legal action and obviously things like talking points and booking people strategically on television.’
In Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania the Trump team is planning fresh legal challenges – many of those raised so far have already been dismissed.
More than 90 campaign staff have been redeployed from Florida to Georgia, where former congressman Doug Collins will be leading the campaign’s recount efforts.
In Arizona, Kory Langhofer, who was the counsel for Trump’s 2016 transition, will serve as lead attorney, Axios said.
And in Pennsylvania, Ronald Hicks, a partner in the Pittsburgh office of the Porter Wright law firm and co-chair of the firm’s election law practice, will lead the Trump campaign’s legal charge.
On Sunday night Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican, told 60 Minutes that his office, which runs the vote count, has received death threats as a result of the Trump campaign’s accusation of vote rigging.
‘From the insight looking out, it feels all very deranged,’ he said.
‘At the end of the day we are counting eligible votes, cast by voters. The controversy surrounding it is something I don’t understand.
‘It’s people making accusations that we wouldn’t count those votes, or people are adding fraudulent votes, or – just, coming up with all sorts of crazy stuff.’
The Trump’s formal legal team includes 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien, lawyer Justin Clark, and senior advisers Jason Miller and David Bossie.
Bill Stepien (left), Trump’s campaign manager, will be heavily involved in the efforts
Rudy Giuliani, pictured at the Philadelphia press conference on Saturday, will participate
Donald Trump waves to supporters outside his golf club in Virginia on Sunday
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, who delivered the memorable press conference on Saturday at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, is also fighting Trump’s legal battles.
Biden’s campaign, in turn, has assembled what it described as the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history, with a large team of attorneys ready to fight challenges.
Bob Bauer, who served as general counsel to the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012, worked with campaign general counsel Dana Remus on voter protection — an issue that thousands of Democratic lawyers around the country are also engaged in, according to the Biden campaign.
The campaign also created a special national litigation team involving hundreds of lawyers that will include as leaders Walter Dellinger, a solicitor general in the Clinton administration, and Donald Verrilli, a solicitor general under Obama.
Democratic lawyer Marc Elias and a team of lawyers from his firm, Perkins Coie, focused on protecting voter access and ensuring a fair and accurate vote count.
On Sunday night it emerged that administrator of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, a Trump appointee who is in charge of federal buildings, was blocking the release of transition funds until the legal challenges had been resolved.
‘An ascertainment has not yet been made,’ Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for GSA, said in an email to the Washington Post, ‘and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law.’
Trump official in charge of approving transition to Biden administration is REFUSING to sign it off
The Trump appointee in charge of initiating the formal transition to a Joe Biden-led administration has so far refused to sign off on the necessary paperwork to begin the process, raising concerns over whether there will be a smooth transfer of power.
Emily Murphy was tapped by President Trump to head the General Services Administration, the agency in charge of federal buildings.
By law, if a new president is elected, the GSA administrator is required to sign paperwork that officially hands over millions of dollars to the transition team of the incoming administration, formally launching the handover process.
The transition team is also granted access to government officials, office space in agencies, and equipment.
Emily Murphy (pictured above in March of last year), who was appointed by President Trump to head the General Services Administration, has refused to sign paperwork that would allow the incoming Joe Biden-led administration to begin the process of transitioning into power
As of Sunday evening, however, Murphy has not signed such a letter even though it has been more than 36 hours since major news organizations projected Biden to be the apparent winner of Tuesday’s election, according to The Washington Post.
‘An ascertainment has not yet been made and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law,’ GSA spokeswoman Pamela Pennington, a spokeswoman for GSA, told the Post.
A spokesperson for Biden’s transition team said: ‘Now that the election has been independently called for Joe Biden, we look forward to the GSA Administrator promptly ascertaining Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the President-elect and Vice President-elect.’
The spokesperson added: ‘America’s national security and economic interests depend on the federal government signaling clearly and swiftly that the United States government will respect the will of the American people and engage in a smooth and peaceful transfer of power.’
The Presidential Transition Act of 1963 is the law which governs the process by which an incoming administration gradually assumes the reins of power.
It states that a candidate becomes ‘president-elect’ when the GSA administration – in this case, Murphy – ascertains that it is ‘apparent’ they have won a majority of electoral college votes.