Trump campaign disavows lawyer Sidney Powell: Transition updates

The campaign now says she's not a member of the president's legal team.

Last Updated: November 22, 2020, 9:28 PM EST

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.

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Here is how the transition unfolded this past week. All times Eastern.
Nov 22, 2020, 9:02 PM EST

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.

Nov 22, 2020, 5:30 PM EST

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." 

Senator David Perdue speaks during a Senate runoff election campaign rally in Canton, Ga., Nov. 20, 2020.
Tami Chappell/EPA via Shutterstock

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

Nov 22, 2020, 3:51 PM EST

Trump slams Paris climate accord at virtual G-20 summit

Trump delivered a short speech during Sunday’s G-20 summit discussing the Paris climate accord.

"I withdrew the United States from the unfair and one-sided Paris climate accord, a very unfair act for the United States," he said. "The Paris accord was not designed to save the environment. It was designed to kill the American economy. I refuse to surrender millions of American jobs and send trillions of American dollars to the world's worst polluters and environmental offenders and that's what would have happened."

Biden has openly expressed his plans to re-join the accord after taking office.

President Donald Trump's virtual speech is aired live in the media center of the 15th annual G20 Leaders' Summit, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 22, 2020.
Saudi Press Agency/Handout via Reuters

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a written statement that during the G-20 summit Sunday, the president also “discussed the economic model he has enacted," talked about “investing in women and called on all countries to do more.”

Later Sunday morning, Trump departed the White House to go to his Virginia golf course.

President Donald Trump drives a golf cart at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., Nov. 22, 2020.
Hannah Mckay/Reuters

-ABC News' Ben Gittleson

Nov 22, 2020, 3:17 PM EST

Michigan Dem party chair urges state canvassing board certify results

A day after the GOP sent a letter to the state board of canvassers, Lavora Barnes, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, submitted her own letter calling for the four appointed members -- two Republicans and two Democrats -- to "carry out" their responsibility and "certify the results" of the election.

Barnes blasts Trump and his Republican allies for sowing doubt in the integrity of the election with "recycled claims that have already failed in court."

"The certification process must not be manipulated to serve as some sort of retroactive referendum on the expressed will of the voters. That is simply not how democracy works," she writes. "The incumbent President and his political party have decided to use the weeks following the election to spread falsehoods and to sow doubt about our state’s democratic process. Their fundamental concern, of course, is not with the process at all, but instead with its result."

PHOTO: Republican canvasser Anthony Markwort, left, and Democrat Ted Dawson look over ballot tabulator tapes on Nov. 04, 2020, in Mason, Mich.
Republican canvasser Anthony Markwort, left, and Democrat Ted Dawson look over ballot tabulator tapes on Nov. 04, 2020, in Mason, Mich. As in counties across Michigan, the Ingham County board of canvassers met to begin certifying the county's vote tally for the state.
John Moore/Getty Images

She also takes to task the GOP's hyper-focus on Detroit and efforts to cast the "out of balance" precincts as something of concern. The reality, Barnes explains, is that the number of votes at issues are "at most 450" which is not nearly enough to change the outcome of the election. Biden's lead is currently at more than 154,000 votes.

-ABC News' Kendall Karson

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