Michigan state legislature closes offices due to 'credible threats of violence'

Law enforcement recommended the Michigan legislature close its offices.

President Donald Trump is slated to hand over control of the White House to President-elect Joe Biden in 39 days.


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Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ husband to teach at Georgetown University

Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, will serve as a Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Georgetown University Law Center, according to a spokesperson for the transition.

Emhoff, an attorney with nearly 30 years of litigation experience, will also serve as a Distinguished Fellow of the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law and Policy, drawing on his expertise in entertainment and media law. He is slated to teach one two-credit course in the spring semester entitled, “Entertainment Law Disputes.”


“I’ve long wanted to teach and serve the next generation of young lawyers,” Emhoff said in a press release from Georgetown. “I couldn’t be more excited to join the Georgetown community.”

The role at the university will be separate and apart from his official role as second gentleman. Emhoff will continue to work with the Biden-Harris transition team to develop the portfolio he will focus on during the upcoming administration.

Emhoff severed ties with his law firm DLA Piper in November. Dr. Jill Biden, one of his predecessors, taught community college students when President-elect Joe Biden served as vice president.

-ABC News' Averi Harper


Trump falsely says Biden would be 'illegitimate president,' president will meet with state attorneys general supporting election lawsuit

President Trump tweeted Thursday morning pushing the Supreme Court to rule favorably on the longshot Texas-led case to overturn the election results.

“The Supreme Court has a chance to save our Country from the greatest Election abuse in the history of the United States. 78% of the people feel (know!) the Election was RIGGED,” Trump tweeted.

While not using President-elect Joe Biden’s name, he also posted a tweet insinuating that Biden would be an “illegitimate president” because Biden “lost the election by hundreds of thousands of legal votes in each of the swing states” – a claim which is inaccurate. More votes were cast for Biden than Trump.

The tweets related to election fraud were flagged by the social media platform, with a link stating Trump's claims were disputed.

Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday afternoon plans to have lunch with 12 state attorneys general, 10 of whom have are part of the lawsuit to overturn the election results. Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, who initially filed the lawsuit, was expected to attend.

The meeting comes as the president continues to make a last-ditch effort to overturn the will of the voters and have the already-certified election results in several swing states thrown out.

Asked what would be discussed at the lunch and if the lawsuit would be addressed, White House deputy spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that “President Trump will have lunch with a dozen state attorneys general and discuss issues important to their citizens and the country, and ways to continue to advance the shared federal-state partnership.”

Per Deere, the expected attendees include attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. Mark Brnovich from Arizona and Dan Cameron from Kentucky are the only ones meeting with Trump that have not filed in support of the election lawsuit.

The attorneys general were already in Washington “for a pre-planned meeting,” and the lunch had been “planned around that meeting several weeks ago,” a White House official said. Some Republican attorneys general were already scheduled to be in Washington, D.C. for a separate meeting not affiliated with the White House.

-ABC News' Ben Gittleson


Biden confirms Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs secretaries

President-elect Joe Biden announced more members of his administration, confirming his picks for secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs, along with his pick for trade representative and director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Tom Vilsack -- secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack, a two-term governor of Iowa, served as secretary of Agriculture during the entire Obama-Biden administration.

Rep. Marcia Fudge -- secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Fudge has represented Ohio's 11th Congressional District for the last 12 years. If confirmed, she will be the first woman to lead the department in more than 40 years.

Denis McDonough -- secretary of Veterans Affairs. McDonough served as White House chief of staff, deputy national security adviser and chief of staff of the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

Katherine Tai -- U.S. trade representative. Tai currently serves as the chief lawyer on trade for the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives and previously was chief counsel for China trade enforcement in the office of the U.S. trade representative.

Susan Rice -- director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Rice served as national security adviser under President Obama from 2013-2017 and before that held the position of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2009-2013.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle


Overview: Trump, GOP loyalists hope SCOTUS takes up election challenge while Biden Cabinet pick raises questions

President Donald Trump and a long line of his Republican supporters are hoping the Supreme Court will agree to take up a long-shot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate the results of the 2020 election in four key swing states.

Republican attorneys general from 17 states filed in support of Texas, as did a group of conservative lawyers and personalities.

Trump himself also sought to join the suit. He is scheduled to meet with 12 state attorneys general on Thursday, 10 of whom filed in support of the suit.

Since his Nov. 3 defeat, the president and his allies have mounted over 50 lawsuits in state and federal courts that have met with resounding and, at times, scathing defeats. On social media, Trump suggested the Supreme Court would finally give him the hearing he has been seeking.

"The case that everyone has been waiting for is the State's case with Texas and numerous others joining. It is very strong, ALL CRITERIA MET," Trump tweeted Wednesday.

Meanwhile, President-elect Joe Biden's pick for secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, is raising questions about civilian control of the military.

In order for Austin to serve as defense secretary he will require a waiver from both houses of Congress -- the waiver is needed because Austin retired from the Army four years ago, which is less than the seven-year gap any nominee to be a secretary of defense must have from the end of their military service.

If approved, Austin would only be the third to receive the waiver to take the position, but the second in four years.

Some Democratic lawmakers have expressed concerns that they will be asked to once again consider a waiver just four years after they voted to do so for retired Marine Gen. James Mattis. Being asked to give Austin the waiver places the 17 Democratic senators and 150 Democratic House Representatives who voted against the Mattis waiver in an awkward position.

-ABC News' Devin Dwyer, Olivia Rubin, Matt Mosk and Luis Martinez


Overview: Ga. officials reject Trump's attempt to overturn election, Biden presses forward without seeing 'detailed' vaccine plan

With just hours to go until Tuesday's "safe harbor" federal law-mandated deadline for states to certify their election results and next Monday's Electoral College voting coming up, time is running out for Trump to find a way to overturn the results of the presidential election as he’s set out to do.

The president held a rally in Georgia -- his first since losing the election -- to campaign for the upcoming Senate runoffs there, races which will determine whether the GOP maintains control, but instead he spent most of his 101 minutes on stage pushing a whirlwind of unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen.

Trump directly called on GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to "immediately ask for a special session of the legislature" -- which could theoretically set up the process of allowing lawmakers to appoint new electors who would support Trump over Biden despite Biden winning by nearly 12,000 votes in the state.

But Georgia officials have rejected Trump's call.

Kemp, joined by GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, said in a statement late Sunday it would be unconstitutional for the legislature to "retroactively change" the process for choosing presidential electors, saying "doing this in order to select a separate slate of presidential electors is not an option that is allowed under state or federal law."

While Kemp and Duncan, along with GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and officials in his office, have said the only option in disputing the results is through the courts, pro-Trump efforts have ended in at least 38 defeats to date, with only a single court victory -- in a case in Pennsylvania that was ultimately not consequential.

It all comes as the president’s personal attorney tasked with leading his efforts to overturn the election in court, Rudy Giuliani, who has been traveling the country as part of the president's ongoing efforts to dispute election results, remains hospitalized with COVID-19 at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington since Sunday. The Arizona legislature has closed for the week "out of an abundance of caution" after Giuliani met with roughly a dozen GOP lawmakers.

As deadlines loom, Trump on Monday presents the presidential Medal of Freedom to wrestling legend Dan Gable at noon and meets with Vice President Mike Pence behind closed doors.

And while Trump administration officials vow that with vaccine on the horizon, life will soon return to normal, the Biden team is sounding alarms on its distribution, saying they still don’t have access to the plan to roll it out.

"We have yet to see any kind of detailed plan," Dr. Celine Gounder, an expert on Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, told "CBS This Morning" Monday after Biden said the same last week.

Pressing forward with the transition despite Trump's roadblocks, Biden and Vice President-elect Harris will receive the President’s Daily Brief and meet with transition advisors on Monday ahead of personally debuting their new health picks, who will inherit leading the country through the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.