Monday, November 16, 2020
President Trump’s Lawyers Withdraw Key Pennsylvania Voter Fraud Claim
https://time.com/5912350/trump-lawyers-withdraw-voter-fraud-claim-pennsylvania/
President Donald Trump’s campaign is withdrawing a central part of its lawsuit seeking to stop the certification of the election results in Pennsylvania, where Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump to capture the state and help win the White House.
Ahead of a Tuesday hearing in the case, Trump’s campaign dropped the allegation that hundreds of thousands of mail-in and absentee ballots — 682,479, to be precise — were illegally processed without its representatives watching.
The campaign’s slimmed-down lawsuit, filed in
federal court on Sunday, maintains the aim of blocking Pennsylvania from
certifying a victory for Biden in the state, and it maintains its claim
that Democratic voters were treated more favorably than Republican
voters.
Trump's failure to work with Biden is becoming more urgent as Covid spreads
President Donald Trump is facing a barrage of calls to permit potentially life-saving transition talks between his health officials and incoming President-elect Joe Biden's aides on a fast-worsening pandemic he is continuing to ignore in his obsessive effort to discredit an election that he clearly lost.
Bolton: Time is running out for Republican Party's credibility
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/291304
John Bolton, former National Security Adviser to US President Donald Trump, on Sunday warned members of the Republican Party that time is running out for them maintain the party’s credibility in the wake of President Donald Trump’s challenges of the results of the presidential election.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Bolton wrote, “As of this writing, the Republican Party has not suffered permanent damage to its integrity and reputation because of President Trump’s post-election rampaging. This will not be true much longer.”
He pointed out that so far, Trump has failed to produce valid legal arguments and persuasive evidence for his claims of election fraud and added, “If he can’t, his ‘right’ to contest the election is beside the point. The real issue is the grievous harm he is causing to public trust in America’s constitutional system. Trump’s time is running out, even as his rhetoric continues escalating…Here is the cold political reality: Trump is enhancing his own brand (in his mind) while harming the Republican brand. The party needs a long internal conversation about the post-Trump era, but first it needs to get there honorably.”
Trump criticizes John Bolton for pushing election loss as legal fight continues
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/live-updates-trump-criticizes-john-bolton-for-pushing-election-loss
President Trump lashed out at
John Bolton on Sunday, calling him "one of the dumbest people in
government" after the former national security adviser urged GOP Party
leaders to accept the 2020 election results and encourage their
supporters to acknowledge defeat.
Sunday, November 15, 2020
Trump says Biden ‘won’ because vote was ‘rigged,’ then says he’s not conceding
US President Donald Trump Sunday finally appeared to acknowledge his loss to Joe Biden in the presidential elections, but quickly followed up by saying he conceded “nothing” and again claimed without evidence that voting was “rigged” in favor of his Democratic rival.
As Donald Trump Refuses to Concede, America Is Caught Between Crisis and Confusion
https://time.com/5910875/trump-concede-biden/
Under normal circumstances, few Americans would know Emily Murphy’s name. The head of the General Services Administration (GSA) is the ultimate Washington bureaucrat, responsible for signing the leases and procuring the supplies that keep the Executive Branch running. “I am not here to garner headlines or make a name for myself,” she testified in 2017. “My goal is to do my part in making the federal government more efficient, effective and responsive to the American people.” The Senate unanimously confirmed her to her post, which she has held ever since.
But in the days after Joe Biden was determined to have won the presidential election, Murphy found herself at the center of the most tumultuous transfer of power in decades. Media outlets from the Associated Press to Fox News called Biden the winner on Nov. 7, assessing that despite the usual isolated irregularities and a smattering of lawsuits, it was mathematically impossible for Donald Trump to overcome his vote deficit in enough states to change the Electoral College result. But Trump has refused to concede, and has conjured fantasies of widespread fraud for which he has provided no proof. Taking their cues, nearly all Republican officials have refused to recognize Biden’s victory until Trump’s challenges are exhausted. And Murphy has so far declined to issue the letter, known as an “ascertainment,” that would formally allow the presidential transition to begin.
Russia Probe Ordered by Barr Won’t Release Findings Before Election
Attorney General William Barr has told top Republicans that the results of a wide-ranging inquiry into the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia investigation won’t be made public before the election, according to people familiar with the matter.
"The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions."
Our ruling
Barr said, "The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions."
The report found that the decision to start the Russia investigation was justified. But the FBI did secure a FISA warrant to surveil Page, a technique that is permitted but considered intrusive.
We rate Barr’s statement Mostly False.
Arrests in Washington as Trump supporters clash with counterdemonstrators
Fervent supporters of US President Donald Trump rallied in Washington on Saturday behind his spurious claim of a stolen election and swarmed his motorcade in adulation when he detoured for a drive-by on his way out of town.
They chanted “USA, USA” and “four more years,” and many carried American flags and signs to show their displeasure with the vote tally. After making the short detour for the slow drive around the site, the motorcade headed to the president’s Virginia golf club.
The march was largely peaceful during the day before turning tense at night, with multiple confrontations as small groups of Trump supporters attempted to enter the area around Black Lives Matter Plaza, about a block from the White House, where several hundred anti-Trump demonstrators had gathered.
Jared and Ivanka are poised to return to a Manhattan social scene that no longer welcomes them
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/14/politics/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-post-white-house/index.html
If the celebrations that spilled into the streets of New York City in the wake of Joe Biden's victory made one thing clear, it's that the Trumps aren't welcome here.
U.S. COVID-19 Numbers Hit New Daily High With More Than 184,000 Cases
https://time.com/5912184/u-s-covid-19-numbers-hit-new-daily-high-with-more-than-184000-cases/
The number of people testing positive for the coronavirus has soared to a new daily high in the United States.
Data from Johns Hopkins University indicates the number of confirmed cases reached 184,514 on Friday, as the number of people infected continues to surge.
The Johns Hopkins data shows the seven-day rolling average for virus-related deaths reported daily in the U.S. rose over the past two weeks from about 828 on Oct. 30 to 1,047 on Friday, an increase of about 26%
The seven-day rolling positivity rate also
rose over the past two weeks from 6.4 to 9.6, an increase of about 50%,
even as the number of tests performed has grown.
Trump's Voter Fraud Claims Are Now Being Debunked by His Own Government
https://time.com/5912049/trumps-voter-fraud-claims-are-now-being-debunked-by-his-own-government/
In the most direct refutation yet of President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud, his own government declared on Thursday that “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”
The joint statement by a group of federal, state
and industry election officials was released Thursday evening by the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is part of the
Department of Homeland Security.
Prophets claiming virus would disappear after the election were clearly wrong!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/14/us/coronavirus-deaths.html
For weeks, as coronavirus cases spiked across the United States, deaths rose far more slowly, staying significantly lower than in the early, deadliest weeks of the nation’s outbreak in the spring. New treatments, many hoped, might slow a new wave of funerals.
But now, signs are shifting: More than 1,000 Americans are dying of the coronavirus every day on average, a 50 percent increase in the last month. Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Tennessee and Wisconsin have recorded more deaths over the last seven days than in any other week of the pandemic. Twice this past week, there have been more than 1,400 deaths reported in a single day.
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Did Eliezar do something wrong?
תלמוד בבלי מסכת חולין דף צה עמוד
והאמר רב: כל נחש שאינו כאליעזר עבד אברהם וכיונתן בן שאול אינו נחש! שולחן ערוך יורה דעה הלכות מעונן ומכשף סימן קעט סעיף ד
בתלמוד בבלי מסכת תענית דף ד עמוד א
אמר רבי שמואל בר נחמני אמר רבי יונתן: שלשה שאלו שלא כהוגן, לשנים השיבוהו כהוגן, לאחד השיבוהו שלא כהוגן. ואלו הן: אליעזר עבד אברהם, ושאול בן קיש, ויפתח הגלעדי. אליעזר עבד אברהם - דכתיב והיה הנערה אשר אמר אליה הטי נא כדך וגו', יכול אפילו חיגרת אפילו סומא - השיבו כהוגן, ונזדמנה לו רבקה.
R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: Three [men] made haphazard requests, two of them were fortunate in the reply they received and one was not, namely, Eliezer, the servant of Abraham; Saul, the son of Kish; and Jephtha the Gileadite. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, as it is written, So let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, ‘Let down thy pitcher etc.’ She might have been lame or blind, but he was fortunate in the answer given to him in that Rebecca chanced to meet him.
-
הגה: ט] י"א דאדם מותר לעשות לו סימן בדבר שיבוא לעתיד, כמו שעשה אליעזר עבד אברהם או יהונתן (טור והר"ד קמחי), ו ויש אוסרין (רמב"ם וסמ"ג). יב] וההולך בתום ובוטח בה', חסד יסובבנו (תהילים לב, י).
Trump had a very bad Friday in court with his election cases. They're headed for more action next week
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/14/politics/trump-election-cases-status/index.html
Legal experts have been saying for a week now that President Donald Trump's court cases to throw out ballots and turn around his election loss were bound to fail.
Friday, November 13, 2020
The Evangelicalization of Orthodoxy
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/evangelicalization-orthodox-jews
But more important, both camps of Orthodoxy have followed parts of evangelical Christianity in coalescing around an ethnonationalist identity, one that views the political right and its ultranationalist worldview, in America and in Israel, as a religious foundation united against the threat of the cultural left. For these swaths of the Orthodox world, support for Trump and the right generally is no longer a political choice separate from Torah. For many, Orthodoxy has fused with a Christianity that is now less a faith tradition than a nationalist civil religion, deeply connected with the Republican Party in general and now Donald Trump in particular.
US security officials: No evidence of deleted or changed votes
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/291144
The Homeland Security Department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other groups on Thursday rejected claims of voter fraud in last week’s election, saying in a statement “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
The members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee, which includes CISA’s Assistant Director Bob Kolasky as well as leaders from the independent US Election Assistance Commission and from the National Association of Secretaries of State, the National Association of State Election Directors, and others, pushed back against claims by US President Donald Trump that voting machines had been tampered with to steer votes from Joe Biden to Trump.
Evidence undermines Trump campaign's claims of dead people voting in Georgia
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/12/politics/trump-campaign-georgia-dead-voters-fact-check/index.html
With CNN and other media outlets including Fox News having called the election for former Vice President Joe Biden, President Donald Trump and his allies continue to argue the results were somehow fraudulent.
Trump floating multiple unlikely survival scenarios as he weighs political future: report
President Trump has floated multiple unlikely scenarios of political survival to his advisers as he refuses to concede the presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a report.
Following a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, Trump reportedly pressed his advisers on whether Republican-controlled state legislatures in states that went for Biden could pick pro-Trump electors in order to sway the vote and give Trump the votes he needs for a second term, people briefed on the discussion told The New York Times.
The sources noted that the conversation was not detailed, serious or reflective of any obsessive desire for Trump to remain in the White House.
“He knows it’s over,” one source told the Times.
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Rabbi Weinberg’s Agony
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/06/rabbi-weinbergs-agony
Weinberg’s leadership role at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary was cruelly tested during the Nazi era. Shapiro offers the shocking revelation that Weinberg acted as an apologist for Hitler in the period immediately following his appointment as chancellor. In March 1933, Weinberg gave an interview to a newspaper in which, as Shapiro summarizes it, “[Weinberg] played down the anti“Semitic nature of the new regime, denied that Jewish political rights or livelihoods were at risk, and expressed optimism for the Jewish future in Germany, a country based on the rule of law.” Shapiro adds tellingly that “Weinberg’s comments differed from those of other Jewish figures in Germany in that he was not subjected to governmental pressure to portray the regime in a positive light. On the contrary, his opinion was expressed voluntarily.” Shapiro is completely baffled by this, and can only attribute Weinberg’s behavior to extraordinary political naiveté. In any case, as the Nazi assault on German Jewry grew in intensity, Weinberg sobered up and acted responsibly in dealing with a host of matters”from trying to preserve some form of kosher slaughter in the country to finding places of refuge for the scholars and students affiliated with the Seminary. Weinberg himself remained in Germany throughout the decade, turning down an offer to become head of the rabbinical court in London.
Is Trump viewed as so infallible that even posting critical comments destroys my crediblity?!
Infallibility - Are our religious leaders infallible?
Anonymous wrote: chabad.fm is NOT sanctioned by the organized Chabad movement. Full stop.Where does one learn what is and has been acceptable in Chabad chassidus? Any discussion with Chabad seems to be predicated on the axiom that they have an infallible doctrine and by definition anyone who disagrees with them is wrong. Consequently Chabad does not engage in genuine dialogue but rather views it as an opportunity to educate their opponents of the error of their ways. This is in fact the reason that the Baal HaTanya said the Gra did not want to meet with him. There is obviously no discussion possible. It also means that any one who questions this doctrine is being disrespectful to Chabad in general and to their rebbbe's in particular. I am interested in the origin of this doctrine of infallibility. The "proofs" that Rabbi Yehoishophot Oliver offers on his blog seem to indicate that only the Chabad rebbes are infallible and we know they were infallible because they made decisions without giving explanations - they just knew the right answer. Do any other chassidic groups claim infallibility for their leaders? Regarding the non-Chabad chaasidic world - Daas Torah is often cited as an meaning infallibity. However R' Avi Shafram - spokesman for the Agudah of America stated unequivocally
Da'at Torah is not some Jewish equivalent to the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility. Not only can rabbis make mistakes of judgment, there is an entire tractate of the Talmud, Horiut, predicated on the assumption that they can, that even the Sanhedrin is capable of erring, even in halachic matters. What Da'at Torah means, simply put, those most imbued with Torah-knowledge and who have internalized a large degree of the perfection of values and refinement of character that the Torah idealizes are thereby rendered particularly, indeed extraordinarily, qualified to offer an authentic Jewish perspective on matters of import to Jews - just as expert doctors are those most qualified (though still fallible, to be sure) to offer medical advice.[1]
אגלי טל (מעינה של תורה חלק ד' עמוד יז) ד"ה ואלה שמות בני אהרן הבכר נדב...אלה שמות בני אהרן הכהנים המשחים (ג- ב,ג) כפילת לשון זו למה? ברם, בידוע שכהני הדתות של אומות העולם נחשבים לברואים על אנושיים, שלעולם אינם עלולים לבוא לידי טעות. לפיכך משמתמנה אדם מהם לכהונה, מיד נותנים לו שם אחר, להודיע בזה שכלל איננו אותו אדם שמלפני כן וכי ניתן לו עתה גוף אחר לגמרי, ואילו אצל בני ישראל שונה הדבר תכלית שינוי, אפילו האדם היותר גדול נחשב בם הוא לבשר ודם העלול לבא לידי טעות, "אין אדם צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא" וכן: "הן בקדושיו לא יאמין". אף כי מחוייבים אנו לנהוג כבוד בתלמידי חכמים, הרי זה רק בזכות התורה שהם לומדים ומקיימים, כשם שאנו נוהגים כבוד רב בספר התורה, אף על פי שאין היא אלא קלף רגיל, מפני שעל הקלף הזה כתובים דברי התורה הקדושה: אולם אין אנו גורסים כל עיקר כי החומר גופו שונה מהחומר של שאר בני אדם. הילכך, אחר שמנה כבר הכתוב את שמותיהם של בני אהרן, הריהו חוזר ואומר: אלה בני אהרן הכהנים המשוחים" - שאפילו אחרי המשחם ככהנים לא ניתנו להם שמות אחרים, כי אם נחשבו לנבי אדם כמקודם
Explaining the False Allegations About Dominion Voting Systems
https://factcheck.thedispatch.com/p/fact-check-explaining-the-false-allegations
Many of the claims about Dominion can be traced to its alleged role in vote-counting errors in Antrim County, Michigan, and several counties in Georgia. Antrim County revealed it had inadvertently misreported a number of votes in unofficial results, with state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox claiming that the error was due to “tabulating software glitched and caused a miscalculation of the votes.” However, Michigan’s secretary of state announced that it was not a software issue, but “user human error” that led to the misreporting, and clarified that “the correct results always were and continue to be reflected on the tabulator totals tape and on the ballots themselves. Even if the error in the reported unofficial results had not been quickly noticed, it would have been identified during the county canvass.”
Dominion Voting Systems Fraud Claims
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rumor-alert-dominion-voting-systems-fraud-claims/
One of the most prevalent voter fraud claims to emerge in the days following the election was the accusation that a computer glitch in a software program from Dominion Voting Systems had mistakenly counted thousands of votes for President Trump as votes for President Biden. This claim was based on a half-truth: a tabulation error did occur in Antrim County, but the problem was a result of a human error, and the mistake was quickly caught and corrected.
Posts falsify ties between election tech firm and Democrats
Claims that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the Clinton Foundation have interest or influence in Dominion are all unsubstantiated. But that didn’t stop tens of thousands of social media users from amplifying them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram this week.
CLAIM: Prominent Democrats including Pelosi, Feinstein and the Clinton family have a stake in or a deep relationship with Dominion Voting Systems, the second-largest voting vendor in the U.S., whose equipment was used in several battleground states in the 2020 election.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Dominion made a one-time philanthropic commitment at a Clinton Global Initiative meeting in 2014, but the Clinton Foundation has no stake or involvement in Dominion’s operations, the nonprofit confirmed to The Associated Press. A former aide to Pelosi has represented Dominion as a lobbyist, but so have lobbyists who worked for Republicans. Claims that Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, holds a stake in Dominion are baseless.
THE FACTS: When Michigan’s Antrim County initially reported a landslide win for Joe Biden in the U.S. presidential election, social media users grew suspicious about the Dominion election management system used to tabulate the data.
As it turned out, Dominion was not to blame, according to the Michigan Department of State. “There was no malice, no fraud here, just human error,” County Clerk Sheryl Guy told the AP.
The
issue was quickly corrected, and President Donald Trump won a majority
of votes in that county. However, in the days since Biden won Michigan
and the presidential election, Trump supporters have continually tried
to undermine trust in Dominion, which is used in at least 30 states, including key battlegrounds like Georgia.
An election worker in Georgia threw away a ballot.
The post claimed to show in a video that a poll worker committed voter fraud by throwing away a ballot.
The man was throwing away a paper with voter instructions, elections officials said.
We rate this claim False.
Was Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Development Funded by Trump Administration?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-vaccine-funded-by-trump/
The research and development of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, which was proven to be 90% effective against SARS-CoV-2 in November 2020, was funded by U.S. President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed.
Agreeing to a buy a vaccine once approved is not the same as funding its research and development.
“Pfizer is proud to be one of various vaccine manufacturers participating in Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential COVID-19 vaccine,” Sharon Castillo, a Pfizer spokesperson, told Snopes in an email. “While Pfizer did reach an advanced purchase agreement with the U.S. government, the company did not accept the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) funding for the research and development process. All the investment for R&D and manufacturing has been made by Pfizer at risk.”
Are 132K Ballots in Georgia Likely Ineligible?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/georgia-ballots-likely-ineligible/
In the days following the 2020 U.S. presidential election, some social media users posted baseless claims that a whopping 132,000 ballots cast in Georgia’s Fulton County were “highly likely” to be tossed out due to an unspecified issue stemming from changes of address.
Posts claiming that 132,000 ballots from Fulton County are to be rendered ineligible from the state’s total vote count appeared to be based on a statement that was then taken out of context, and used incorrectly. We therefore rate this claim “False.”
Trump's Firings at the Pentagon Put Our National Security at Risk
https://time.com/5910672/donald-trump-pentagon-firings/
Over the past few days, President Trump has fired four of the top officials in the Pentagon – the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (essentially the COO), the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence (a highly regarded retired 3-star Navy SEAL Admiral), and the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (one of the most powerful positions in the Pentagon). In essence, he has (military term alert) “decapitated” our operational civilian leadership of the military. High fives are likely happening from Beijing to Moscow to Caracas. It appears to be a simple act of vengeance against a team Trump felt did not support him in the run-up to the election. In their place, he has installed a largely unknown group of political sycophants who have neither the stature nor the experience to undertake these jobs – each of which is vital to our national security.
Biden said two months ago he would not declare victory until election was independently certified
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-victory-election-independently-certified
During the first 2020 presidential debate in September, former Vice President Joe Biden pledged that he would not declare victory in the election before the results were “independently certified.”
"Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted? And will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?” moderator and “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace asked.
“Yes,” Biden answered. “Here's the deal: We count the ballots. As you pointed out, some of these ballots in some states can't even be opened until Election Day. And if there's thousands of ballots, [it’s] going to take time to do it.”
But to millions of Trump supporters and allies, the outcome is not that clear, pending the Trump campaign’s many legal challenges in key battleground states.
A number of media outlets’ experts, including at Fox News, have called the race for Biden. The Electoral College is expected to formalize Biden as president-elect on Dec. 14, unless Trump prevails in court.
Nevertheless, Trump has remained defiant, declining to concede the
election and declaring on Twitter on Wednesday evening, “WE WILL WIN!”
Texas politician offers $1m for proof of voter fraud and pushes baseless claims
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/11/texas-dan-patrick-voter-fraud-reward
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud or malfeasance in Texas or any other state, despite the repeated efforts of Trump and his supporters to cast doubt over the integrity of the 3 November election.
Patrick’s press release also contained no evidence of mass voter fraud, and instead cited a single episode in which a care home social worker was arrested for allegedly attempting to register 67 of its residents to vote, apparently without their knowledge.
By comparison, Trump’s lead in Texas over Biden was 647,076 votes on
Wednesday afternoon, with more than 99% of the state’s ballots counted.
Trump's fraudulent claims about voter fraud
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/525583-trumps-fraudulent-claims-about-voter-fraud
Trump roars like a wounded lion, but his legal team has produced only a mouse. Conspicuously missing from the lawsuits filed so far, many of which courts have already dismissed, are credible allegations of any “major fraud.” One example is Trump for President Inc. v. Boockvar, an 85-page lawsuit just filed in federal court by the Trump campaign against Pennsylvania state and county election officials. The lawsuit seeks an emergency order prohibiting Pennsylvania from certifying the results of the state election, in which Biden leads Trump by some 47,000 votes with 99 percent counted.
Although the lawsuit is one of the most sweeping challenges by the Trump campaign to a Biden swing state victory, it nowhere alleges even one specific instance of deliberate voter fraud.
DHS is swatting down voter fraud claims Trump’s team is pushing
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/10/dhs-fact-checking-trump-conspiracies-435821
Since Election Day, President Donald Trump and his allies have pushed numerous merit-free allegations of voting irregularities.
The Department of Homeland Security’s
top cyber official is swatting them down in near real-time —
contradicting the president in a way that often ends in a pink slip.
State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/11/politics/state-department-biden-messages/index.html
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.
GOP senator says he’ll ‘step in’ if Biden doesn’t receive intel briefings by Friday
President-elect Joe Biden should be able to receive intelligence briefings by Friday, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate said in a radio interview that aired Wednesday.
If Biden doesn’t receive the briefings, then U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said he is prepared to “step in” and make sure Biden does.
However, in a Twitter message Wednesday night, Lankford clarified that he continues to believe President Trump “is fully in his right to ask for recounts and for every legal question to be fully vetted and resolved.”