Washington
A federal appeals court in Philadelphia on Friday rejected President Donald Trump’s latest effort to challenge the election results by blocking President-elect Joe Biden from being declared the winner of Pennsylvania.
Trump’s lawyers vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court despite the judges’ assessment that the “campaign’s claims have no merit.”
The 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals echoed a string of other courts in finding the Trump campaign offered no evidence of any election fraud.
Trump’s campaign has repeatedly alleged election irregularities that amount to fraud, without evidence. “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee and former law school professor, wrote in the decision for the three-judge panel.
The ruling is the latest in a series of blows to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the election. Most leading media outlets have called the race for Biden, who has won 306 Electoral votes, far more than the 270 necessary to win.
Meanwhile, for the first time in US presidential history, president-elect Joe Biden’s transition team will have more than 20 Indian-Americans as its members.
Biden and the Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have formed several agency review teams, including a Covid task force, of highly talented professionals with profound domain knowledge and experience in various federal agencies to keep the ball rolling from day one following their oath-taking ceremony in January 2021.- Agencies