WASHINGTON — The General Services Administration ascertained Monday that President-elect Joe Biden is the “apparent winner” of the Nov. 3 election, clearing the way for the start of the transition from President Donald Trump’s administration and allowing Biden to coordinate with federal agencies on plans for taking over Jan. 20.
Trump, who has refused to concede the election, said in a tweet that he is directing his team to cooperate on the transition but is vowing to keep up the fight.
GSA Administrator Emily Murphy cited “recent developments involving legal challenges and certifications of election results” in her determination. Michigan certified Biden’s victory Monday, and a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday tossed a Trump campaign lawsuit seeking to prevent certification in that state.
Yohannes Abraham, executive director of the Biden transition, said in a statement that the decision “is a needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track.”
He added: “In the days ahead, transition officials will begin meeting with federal officials to discuss the pandemic response, have a full accounting of our national security interests, and gain complete understanding of the Trump administration’s efforts to hollow out government agencies.”
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Murphy, a Trump appointee, had faced bipartisan criticism for failing to begin the transition process sooner, preventing Biden’s team from working with career agency officials on plans for his administration, including in critical national security and public health areas.
“Please know that I came to my decision independently, based on the law and available facts. I was never directly or indirectly pressured by any Executive Branch official — including those who work at the White House or GSA — with regard to the substance or timing of my decision,” Murphy wrote in a letter to Biden.
Trump tweeted shortly after her letter was made public: “We will keep up the good fight and I believe we will prevail! Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.”
Pressure had been mounting on Murphy as an increasing number of Republicans, national security experts and business leaders said it was time for that process to move forward.
Retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who has repeatedly called for the transition to begin, released a new statement Monday saying that Trump should “put the country first” and help Biden’s administration succeed.
“When you are in public life, people remember the last thing you do,” Alexander said.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, on Monday called for Murphy to release money and staffing needed for the transition. Portman, a senior member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, also said Biden should receive high-level briefings on national security and the coronavirus vaccine distribution plan.
Alexander and Portman, who have both aligned themselves with Trump, joined a growing number of Republican officials who in recent days have urged Trump to begin the transition immediately. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., also urged a smooth transition, saying in a statement Monday that “at some point, the 2020 election must end.”
Meanwhile, more than 160 business leaders asked Murphy to immediately acknowledge Biden as president-elect and begin the transition to a new administration. “Withholding resources and vital information from an incoming administration puts the public and economic health and security of America at risk, the business letters said in an open letter to Murphy.
Separately, more than 100 Republican former national security officials — including former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte — said in a statement that Trump’s refusal to concede and allow for an orderly transition “constitutes a serious threat” to America’s democratic process. The officials signing the letter worked under four Republican presidents, including Trump.
The statement called on “Republican leaders — especially those in Congress — to publicly demand that President Trump cease his anti-democratic assault on the integrity of the presidential election.”
Trump had publicly refused to accept defeat and launched a series of losing court battles in several states, seeking to overturn the election results. His legal challenges have been met with rejection as states move forward with confirming their results.
MICHIGAN CERTIFIES
In Michigan, the Board of State Canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the state results on a 3-0 vote with one GOP abstention. Trump and his allies had hoped to block the vote to allow time for an audit of ballots in Wayne County, which includes Detroit and where Trump lost by more than 330,000 votes.
Under Michigan law, Biden claims all 16 electoral votes. Biden won the state by 2.8 percentage points — a larger margin than in other states where Trump is contesting the results like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
“The board’s duty today is very clear,” said Aaron Van Langevelde, the Republican vice chair. “We have a duty to certify this election based on these returns. That is very clear.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement after the vote that it was “time to put this election behind us.”
“President-elect Biden won the State of Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, and he will be our next president on January 20th.”
The Trump legal team dismissed the certification as “simply a procedural step” and insisted it would fight on.
In the run-up to Monday’s meeting, Trump made a personal intervention into Michigan, reaching out to state and local officials. His supporters called on the GOP-controlled Legislature to appoint its own set of electors before the Electoral College meets Dec. 14.
PENNSYLVANIA FIGHT PERSISTS
In Pennsylvania, a conservative Republican judge shot down the Trump campaign’s biggest legal effort with a ruling that asked why he would disenfranchise nearly 7 million voters with no evidence to back the campaign’s claims.
But Trump’s lawyers still hope to block the state’s certification, quickly appealing to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The court ordered lawyers to file a brief Monday but did not agree to hear oral arguments.
The campaign, in its filings, asked for urgent consideration so it could challenge the state election results before they are certified next month. If not, it will seek to decertify them, the filings said.
Trump’s team insisted it did not want to invalidate all of the 6.8 million ballots cast in the state. Instead, the lawyers said they were taking aim at seven Democratic-leaning counties where they take issue with how mail-in ballots were handled.
Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes. Other litigation has failed to change a single vote.
Pennsylvania county election boards were voting Monday, the state deadline, on whether to certify local election results to the Department of State. The boards in two populous counties divided along party lines, with majority Democrats in both places voting to certify.
After all counties have sent certified results to Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, she must tabulate, compute and canvass the votes for all races. The law requires her to perform that task quickly but does not set a deadline.
In its appeal brief filed Monday, the Trump campaign suggested that the “real deadline” for the state’s election results was Dec. 8, the date by which states must choose electors to guarantee they will be accepted by Congress.
“It would be unconscionable to allow Pennsylvania to certify electors for Biden and then have it turn out that Trump won the race,” the campaign said in a filing Monday evening.
WISCONSIN STILL RECOUNTING
Wisconsin’s partial presidential recount entered its fourth day Monday, with very few changes in vote totals as Trump’s attorneys appeared to be focused on a legal challenge seeking to toss tens of thousands of ballots, including the one cast by an attorney for the campaign.
Biden won the state by about 20,600 votes and his margin in Milwaukee and Dane counties was about 2-to-1. Those are the only counties where Trump paid to have a recount.
Trump’s attorneys have objected to counting any absentee ballots where voters identified themselves as “indefinitely confined;” where information on the certification envelope is in two different ink colors, indicating a poll worker may have helped complete it; and where there is not a separate written record for it having been requested, including all in-person absentee ballots.
All of those ballots were being counted in the recount, but could be targeted as part of a Trump legal challenge.
Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said Monday that the recount was nearly 25% done in that county, with nearly 83,000 ballots out of more than 345,000 cast having been recounted. Those recounted so far in both counties showed changes of only a handful of votes from what was reported on election night.
Milwaukee County had hoped to be done by Wednesday, but due to delays caused by objections raised by Trump supporters the work is expected to go closer to the Dec. 1 deadline.
ATTORNEY DISAVOWED
Additionally, the Trump campaign’s legal team moved to distance itself from conservative attorney Sidney Powell after a tumultuous several days in which Powell made multiple incorrect statements about the voting process, cited complex and unsupported conspiracy theories and vowed to “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” court filing.
“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity,” Rudy Giuliani and another lawyer for Trump, Jenna Ellis, said in a statement Sunday.
There was no immediate clarification from the campaign and Powell did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Trump had heralded Powell’s role as one of his lawyers, tweeting on Nov. 14 that she was part of a team of “wonderful lawyers and representatives” spearheaded by Giuliani.
But the terse Sunday statement was the latest sign of wariness over her approach even within some conservative circles.
Powell made headlines with her statements at a Thursday news conference where, joined by Giuliani and Ellis, she incorrectly suggested that a server hosting evidence of voting irregularities was located in Germany, that voting software used by Georgia and other states was created at the direction of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and that votes for Trump had probably been switched in favor of Biden.
In a subsequent interview with Newsmax, she appeared to accuse Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and its Republican secretary of state of being part of a conspiracy involving a voting-system contract award that she contends harmed Trump’s reelection bid.
“Georgia’s probably going to be the first state I’m going to blow up and Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it,” she said, later adding that a court filing she hoped to submit this week involving the state would be “biblical.”
The status of that lawsuit was unclear Monday.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Daly, Zeke Miller, Mary Clare Jalonick, Erick Tucker, David Eggert, Colleen Long, Scott Bauer, Maryclaire Dale, Mark Scolforo, Christina A. Cassidy and John Flesher of The Associated Press; by Felicia Sonmez, Lisa Rein, Tom Hamburger, Beth Reinhard, Kayla Ruble, Keith Newell, Aaron Schaffer and Maya Smith of The Washington Post; and by Erik Larson of Bloomberg News.