Donald Trump is reportedly planning a series of rallies where will show off obituaries of dead people who he claims voted.
The outgoing President is said to be gathering together ‘a campaign-style media operation’ to challenge his election loss.
It comes after Trump has insisted he will not willingly concede defeat to president-elect Joe Biden, despite independent media analysts judging there is no way Trump could win.
It was reported last night the Trump campaign was ‘mobilising its troops and readying for war’ both in the public domain and in the courts.
‘We want to make sure we have an adequate supply of manpower on the ground for man-to-man combat,’ one adviser told Axios.
The media team will be headed by Tim Murtaugh, a former television reporter in Virginia who joined the Trump campaign in February 2019 as communications director.
The campaign is thought to involve ‘regular press briefings, releases on legal action and obviously things like talking points and booking people strategically on television.’
It comes as the Trump team plans fresh legal challenges in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, despite most of the previous ones having not got very far.
More than 90 campaign staff have been redeployed from Florida to Georgia, where former congressman Doug Collins will be leading the campaign’s recount efforts.
In Arizona, Kory Langhofer, who was the counsel for Trump’s 2016 transition, will serve as lead attorney.
And in Pennsylvania, Ronald Hicks, a partner in the Pittsburgh office of the Porter Wright law firm and co-chair of the firm’s election law practice, will be in charge.
Republican Al Schmidt, a city commissioner who runs the vote count for Philadelphia, told 60 Minutes his office has received death threats as a result of the Trump’s accusation of electoral fraud.
‘From the insight looking out, it feels all very deranged,’ he said.
‘At the end of the day we are counting eligible votes, cast by voters. The controversy surrounding it is something I don’t understand.
‘It’s people making accusations that we wouldn’t count those votes, or people are adding fraudulent votes, or – just, coming up with all sorts of crazy stuff.’
Biden’s campaign has reportedly assembled what it described as ‘the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history’, with a large team of lawyers ready to fight Trump’s challenges.
A special national litigation team has been created involving hundreds of lawyers that will include Walter Dellinger, a solicitor general in the Clinton administration, and Donald Verrilli, a solicitor general under Obama.
Bob Bauer, who served as general counsel to the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012, worked with campaign general counsel Dana Remus on voter protection during the election.
And Democratic lawyer Marc Elias and a team of lawyers from his firm, Perkins Coie, focused on protecting voter access and ensuring a fair and accurate vote count.
It emerged yesterday that administrator of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, a Trump appointee who is in charge of federal buildings, was blocking the release of transition funds until the legal challenges had been resolved.
‘An ascertainment has not yet been made,’ Pamela Pennington, a spokesperson for GSA, said in an email to the Washington Post, ‘And its administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfil, all requirements under the law.’
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