Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates
The campaign now says she's not a member of the president's legal team.
President-elect Joe Biden is moving forward with transition plans, capping a tumultuous and tension-filled campaign during a historic pandemic against President Donald Trump, who still refuses to concede the election two weeks after Biden was projected as the winner and is taking extraordinary moves to challenge the results.
Running out of legal alternatives to override the election loss, Trump invited Michigan's top Republican state lawmakers to visit the White House on Friday, as he and allies pursue a pressure campaign to overturn results in a state Biden won by more than 150,000 votes.
Despite Trump's roadblocks and his administration refusing to recognize Biden as the president-elect, Biden is forging ahead as he prepares to announce key Cabinet positions.
Though Trump has alleged widespread voter fraud, he and his campaign haven't been able to provide the evidence to substantiate their claims and the majority of their lawsuits have already resulted in unfavorable outcomes.
Top headlines:
Biden expected to tap Antony Blinken for secretary of state
Despite Joe Biden's transition being stalled, the president-elect is moving forward with selecting his cabinet.
According to sources familiar with the decision, Biden is expected to name Antony Blinken, a longtime foreign policy aide with decades of experience in Washington, as his nominee for secretary of state. The announcement could come as soon as Tuesday.
Blinken has been one of Biden's closest advisers for decades, from Biden's time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the Obama White House and the 2020 presidential campaign.
A former deputy secretary of state under President Obama, Blinken began his career in the Clinton State Department and later moved to the White House and National Security Council under President Clinton.
A spokesman for Biden's transition declined to comment.
-ABC News' Martha Raddatz, Katherine Faulders, John Santucci, Molly Nagle and Benjamin Siegel
Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell
The Trump campaign released a statement Sunday night distancing itself from attorney Sidney Powell, saying she's not a member of the "Trump Legal Team," despite President Trump previously announcing that she was.
"Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity," Trump campaign attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a statement.
The statement comes after Powell advanced a series of unproven election claims in an interview on Newsmax and at a recent press conference on behalf of the campaign, portions of which were retweeted by the official GOP Twitter account.
The president last week announced Powell as a member of his legal team along with Giuliani, Ellis, and attorneys Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski calls on Trump to begin the transition process
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) released a statement today urging President Trump to respect the outcome of the 2020 election.
"President Trump has had the opportunity to litigate his claims, and the courts have thus far found them without merit," her statement said in part. "A pressure campaign on state legislators to influence the electoral outcome is not only unprecedented but inconsistent with our democratic process. It is time to begin the full and formal transition process."
Murkowski has previously acknowledged Joe Biden as the president-elect.
Perdue, Loeffler support Ga. recount with absentee signature matching
Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler said Sunday that they back the president's calls for a recount involving absentee signature matching in Georgia.
"Anything less than that will not be a full and transparent recount," Perdue said in a campaign press release. "Georgians deserve full transparency and uniformity in the counting process."
Loeffler, in a statement a short time later said, "I fully support President Trump’s request for a recount in Georgia. We must match and verify absentee ballot signatures to their corresponding voter registration signatures, investigate all voting irregularities, and count only the votes that were legally cast.”
Signature matching will not take place during the recount, according to Gabriel Sterling, the statewide voting system implementation manager in Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office. He said it's "not part of this process because it's not contemplated in the law" and that they've received no evidence that signature matching was not done properly in accordance with state law.
Sterling also said that parties were allowed to designate observers to watch the absentee signature matching process take place, but neither party did this except for just one instance in one county.
Georgia certified its election results on Friday.
Perdue and Loeffler are facing Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock in Georgia runoff elections for the U.S. Senate.
-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan
