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.


0

Harris vows to 'right the wrongs' of the Trump admin at immigration conference

During first speech post-election on immigration, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ told immigration activists that she's focused on working to “right the wrongs of these past four years."

Harris, during pre-taped remarks at the 13th Annual National Immigrant Integration Conference, ticked off a few immigration-related actions the Biden administration hopes to tackle in the first 100 days in office.

“In our first 100 days, we will send an immigration bill to Congress, reinstate DACA, repeal harmful and discriminatory policies like the Muslim ban, and during our administration, we will repeal indiscriminate enforcement policies that tear families apart and make us less safe," Harris said.

The daughter of two immigrants, Harris later noted the sacrifice that immigrants have made during the pandemic as essential workers, vowing to create a “humane immigration system.”

-ABC News' Beatrice Peterson


Trump called Pennsylvania Republican House Speaker last week

Trump reached out to Pennsylvania State Speaker of the House Brian Cutler last week asking about the legislature possibly overturning the election as part of his ongoing and apparent pressure campaign to have GOP-controlled legislatures flip results in his favor in battleground states he lost.

Mike Straub, a spokesman for Cutler, confirmed to ABC News reporting in The New York Times that Trump asked what options were available to the legislature on the phone call.

“Cutler made it very clear what power the legislature has and does not have," Straub told ABC News, adding he is "not aware of the President explicitly asking to turnover [sic] the election results."

Straub separately told ABC News that he was not present for the conversations between Cutler and the president, but he was briefed.

"The president wanted to know what options were available to the legislature to address those concerns... Speaker Cutler was very clear in explaining what power the legislature has and does not have within our state Constitution," Straub said. "One remedy the Trump campaign is seeking in a court case involves the legislature seating electors -- Speaker Cutler explained the legislature does not have that authority."

Cutler separately signed onto a resolution last week imploring Pennsylvania Republicans in Congress to officially contest the election results in January. While this has happened in the past, including over the election of George W. Bush, it is highly unlikely to overturn the election results.

The Supreme Court may decide Tuesday to take up a challenge by Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly over the constitutionality of mail-in voting, but legal experts have told ABC News that is a long shot. With Tuesday being the constitutionally mandated "safe-harbor" deadline for electors, all legal challenges are meant to be resolved by the end of the day, thus ensuring the correct electors will cast their votes in statehouses on Dec. 14.

-ABC News' Alex Hosenball


Former Trump admin official sues Trump campaign lawyer for defamation

Former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs has sued Trump campaign lawyer Joe diGenova and Newsmax over comments the Trump campaign lawyer made on the TV network calling for Krebs to be "taken out at dawn and shot."

Krebs’ lawyers say that the Trump campaign and “diGenova, spread, stoked, and instigated unfounded allegations of system-wide voter fraud, abuse, and interference—without proffering any evidence deemed credible by any state or federal court—in a naked and politically motivated effort to undermine public confidence in the election,” according to a complaint filed in Montgomery County, Maryland, court.

Trump fired Krebs last month after he repeatedly rebuked unfounded claims made by Trump and his campaign about widespread voter fraud, which the complaint also hits on.

The lawsuit says Krebs has received death threats through email and on Twitter by, in some cases, “angry Newsmax viewers," with people calling Krebs a traitor who should be hung. These threats were so serious, according to the lawsuit, that Krebs’ 10-year-old child asked, “Daddy’s going to get executed?”

“Seeing the pain and fear in those closest to him has only elevated his own pain and fear,” the lawsuit says. Because of this, Krebs has had to leave his house, retain private security and reported threats to law enforcement.

Krebs is seeking Newsmax to remove the clip as well as monetary damages, with the suit saying that diGenova and the network have a “symbiotic relationship.”

-ABC News' Luke Barr


Jenna Ellis says she's positive for COVID-19: Sources

Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis has informed associates she’s tested positive for coronavirus only days after attending a Christmas party at the White House, igniting panic in the West Wing, multiple sources tell ABC News.

Ellis attended a senior staff Christmas party at the White House on Friday, where she was photographed not wearing a mask.

The news comes just days after it was revealed that Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19. Ellis has spent the last month traveling the country with Giuliani working to overturn the 2020 election results in states including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona on behalf of the president. Both have attended hearings without wearing a mask.

-ABC News' Katherine Faulders, John Santucci and Will Steakin


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.