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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Jill Biden welcomes Gen. Lloyd Austin into 'the Biden family'
Dr. Jill Biden and retired Gen. Lloyd Austin, President-elect Joe Biden's choice for defense secretary, participated in a care package packing event in Washington D.C. hosted by Operation Gratitude, a nonprofit that sends care packages to members of the military, first responders and their families.
The event marks the last day of box packing in D.C. as part of a multi-day effort in Washington and Los Angeles. Inside the boxes are handwritten letters from volunteers, snacks, hygiene items, handmade items like scarves and bracelets, playing cards and beanie babies.
Biden shared her message for the American people during the holiday season and talked about how her family's holiday plans would be different because of the pandemic.
"I think it's changed every Americans' holiday plans," she said. "You know, families can't be together like they have."
"If all Americans would commit to an act of kindness toward a military family, and, of course so many people are food insecure during this time," she added.
Later, the first lady-elect, Austin and his wife took a photo with the volunteers from Operation Gratitude during which Biden said she was happy to have the Austin's join the Biden family.
"We're so happy to welcome the general to our administration, and we're so proud to have both of them in -- joining the Biden family. So, thank you." she said.
"Great family," Austin added. "Some familiar faces in the crowd. Thank you for all you're doing. God bless you, God bless your families."
-ABC News' Beatrice Peterson and Lauren Lantry
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
Trump-appointed judge in Wisconsin rejects another Trump election challenge
While the U.S. Supreme Court has twice refused to hear pro-Trump challenges to the 2020 elections, a federal judge in Wisconsin on Saturday joined the chorus of rulings against Trump in his effort to use the courts to invalidate Biden’s victory.
“This Court has allowed plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Brett H. Ludwig, a Trump appointee. Ludwig noted that the president had asked “that the Rule of Law be followed,” and he declared in response: “It has been.”
The ruling comes just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an election challenge brought by the Texas attorney general contesting the way elections were run in four states, including Wisconsin. Trump had called that case “the big one,” because he thought it held the best hopes for him of re-litigating the 2020 contest in court.
This latest ruling marks nearly 50 losses for the president in cases brought by him and his supporters since election day. In Wisconsin, where Biden won by more than 20,000 votes, Trump asked for 221,000 absentee and mail-in ballots to be excluded on the grounds they were collected in ways not laid out by the state legislature. And the president argued that the legislature should be afforded the chance to select an alternate slate of electors.
Ludwig’s 23-page opinion gave wide latitude to Trump -- finding that the president had standing to file his election challenge and was not too late to raise his concerns about the way the election was conducted. But the outcome of the case was the same as rulings in other battleground states -- that Biden’s victory was attained legally and should not be thrown to a legislature to upend.
The president, Ludwig wrote, “has not proved” that state election officials violated his rights. “To the contrary, the record shows Wisconsin’s Presidential Electors are being determined in the very manner directed by the Legislature, as required by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.”
Ludwig further noted that if he followed the demands set out in Trump’s lawsuit, “any disappointed loser in a Presidential election, able to hire a team of clever lawyers, could flag claimed deviations from the election rules and cast doubt on the election results. This would risk turning every Presidential election into a federal court lawsuit over the Electors Clause.”
The Trump campaign has not yet responded to requests for comment.
At the moment the federal ruling was handed down, the Wisconsin Supreme Court was hearing arguments on a separate challenge to a recount of votes in the state, which had failed in a lower court.
-ABC News' Matthew Mosk and Alex Hosenball