A Texas judge dismissed a lawsuit by Republican Louie Gohmert that aimed to give Vice President Mike Pence the power to overturn the results of the presidential election.
Lawyers for VP Pence had asked for the case to be thrown out on December 31.
Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee the session on January 6 and declare the winner of the White House race.
President-elect Joe Biden is due to take office on January 20.
President Donald Trump is yet to concede.
Louie Gohmert told Newsmax TV that he planned to appeal against the verdict.
President Trump’s friends and colleagues in the Republican party have presented dozens of legal challenges to the November outcome which delivered a decisive win to Joe Biden.
Joe Biden’s victory was announced after days of vote-counting that took longer than in recent years because of the huge number of postal ballots cast due to the coronavirus pandemic.
President Trump has made numerous unsubstantiated claims that Joe Biden’s win, which saw the president-elect gain 306 Electoral College votes to his rival’s 232, was fraudulent.
Congressman Gohmert’s case sought to allow VP Mike Pence to reject some Electoral College votes when they are ratified by Congress on January 6.
The vice-president presides over the vote certification in Congress in a ceremonial role that involves opening and tallying the envelopes containing Electoral College votes before announcing the result.
Gohmert’s case aimed to expand that role to allow VP Pence to cast judgment on the validity of the votes and potentially replace votes for Joe Biden with ones for Donald Trump.
Judge Jeremy Kernodle, who was appointed to the Texas court in 2018 by President Trump, rejected the case, saying it was based on speculative events.
On December 31, a lawyer from the DoJ representing Mike Pence urged Louie Gohmert to drop the case, suggesting that it was not the vice-president’s office that should be scrutinizing the outcome.
Although most Republicans in Congress are expected to vote in favor of certifying the results, a small number including Senator Josh Hawley, say they plan to object. But their vote is not expected to change the outcome.
Joe Biden is due to be sworn in as president on January 20 at a scaled-back ceremony with just 1,000 tickets available due to Covid-19 precautions.
President Donald Trump and Joe Biden have fiercely clashed in the first of the three White House debates.
The Republican president frequently interrupted, prompting the Democratic candidate to tell him to “shut up” as the two fought over the pandemic, healthcare and the economy.
Donald Trump was challenged over white supremacist support and refused to condemn a specific far-right group.
Opinion polls suggest Joe Biden has a steady single-digit lead over President Trump.
However, with 35 days until Election Day, surveys from several important states show a closer contest.
Polls also suggest one in ten Americans have yet to make up their mind how to vote. But analysts said the September 29 debate – the first of three – probably would not make much difference.
Overall, the 90-minute debate in Cleveland, Ohio, was light on serious policy discussion. Both candidates talked over each other but President Trump cut in some 73 times, according to a count by CBS News.
The tenor became clear early on as the two candidates sparred over healthcare. Hectoring from Donald Trump saw Joe Biden call the president a “clown”.
As they moved on to the Supreme Court, the rancor continued, with Joe Biden refusing to answer when asked if he would try to expand the number of judges.
“Will you shut up, man?” Joe Biden snapped at President Trump, later adding: “Keep yapping, man.”
President Trump responded: “The people understand, Joe. Forty-seven years [in politics], you’ve done nothing. They understand.”
In one of the most talked about exchanges of the night, Donald Trump was asked by the moderator, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, if he was prepared to condemn white supremacists.
President Trump initially said he would but when asked to denounce the far-right Proud Boys group by name, he sidestepped.
He said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, but I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.”
The Proud Boys, an anti-immigrant, all-male group, took to social media to celebrate.
“Standing down and standing by sir,” it posted on Telegram.
Antifa, short for “anti-fascist”, is a loose affiliation of far-left activists that often clash with the far right at street protests.
Joe Biden said Donald Trump had “panicked” over the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans.
“A lot of people died and a lot more are going to die unless he gets a lot smarter, a lot quicker,” he said.
President Trump objected to Joe Biden using the word “smart”.
“You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class,” he said.
“Don’t ever use the word smart with me. Don’t ever use that word.”
Local rules required everyone in the room to wear masks but of the president’s family members present, only First Lady Melania Trump donned a face covering during the debate.
Due to the pandemic, the forum at Case Western Reserve University had a small, socially distanced audience and the traditional opening handshake was skipped.
Bernie Sanders has decided to suspend his presidential campaign, clearing the way for former Vice-President Joe Biden to become the Democratic Party’s nominee.
The 78-year-old Vermont senator told supporters on April 8 he saw no feasible path to get enough votes to win the nomination.
An early front-runner, Bernie Sanders found success with young voters, but slipped behind Joe Biden in recent weeks.
Bernie Sanders helped make healthcare and income inequalities key election issues.
Among the most left-leaning candidates during this year’s election cycle, Bernie Sanders, a self-described “Democratic socialist”, campaigned on policies including healthcare for all, free public college, raising taxes on the wealthy and increasing minimum wage.
Bernie Sanders, an Independent, had sought the Democratic presidential nomination before, losing out in 2016 to Hillary Clinton.
In both elections, he found favor with young voters who embraced his calls for a political “revolution”.
Photo Getty Images
Bernie Sanders won endorsements from a number of celebrities, including Cardi B, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Mark Ruffalo and Dick Van Dyke.
He cemented his front-runner status at the start of the 2020 Democratic primary election season with wins in New Hampshire and Nevada, but his momentum lagged in later days.
Bernie Sanders failed to win key African-American voters across the southern states, who largely went for Joe Biden.
In recent weeks, Bernie Sanders had been hosting campaign events through online live streams due to health concerns from the Covid-19 outbreak.
Joe Biden, 77, is now expected to be crowned the Democratic presidential nominee at the party’s convention in August. He will then face off against President Donald Trump during the November general election.
Bernie Sanders told supporters in a live stream that the decision to end his campaign was “very difficult and painful”, and acknowledged some of his supporters would have wished him to fight until the last state contest.
He said: “If I believed we had a feasible path to the nomination, I would certainly continue.”
Bernie Sanders added that the campaign has “transformed American consciousness as to what kind of nation we can become and have taken this country a major step forward in the never-ending struggle for economic justice, social justice, racial justice and environmental justice”.
He noted that across the country, his campaign received “a significant majority of the votes…from people not only 30 years or younger, but 50 years or younger”.
“The future of this country is with our ideas.”
Bernie Sanders also congratulated Joe Biden, and said that he will work with him to “move our progressive ideas forward”.
He added that he will still be on ballots in states that have yet to vote in the Democratic primary elections, in order to gather delegates and influence the party’s general election platform at the convention.
“Together, standing united, we will go forward to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history.”
Many have spent the past few weeks vigorously campaigning in Iowa, which is
always the first to vote. The primaries contest goes on until early June, and
moves on to New Hampshire next Tuesday.
Polls suggest that Bernie Sanders
has risen to be the favorite in Iowa.
He is one of four senators running
for president who have had to stay behind in Washington to attend President
Trump’s impeachment trial, but his supporters, including Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, a well-known congresswoman, have been energetically campaigning
on his behalf in Iowa.
Four years after losing out to
Hillary Clinton, the 78-year-old is now backed by a huge pot of donations and a
team of hundreds.
Some of the other big names
including Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg will be hoping
Bernie Sanders doesn’t have it all his own way in Iowa.
There are also Republican caucuses on February 3, and two people are running
against Donald Trump, but the president’s popularity within his own party is
such that his nomination is all but a formality.
Iowa, to some extent, provides a glimpse of what went wrong for Democrats in
2016.
In the last election, more than 200 counties flipped from supporting
President Barack Obama in 2012 to backing Donald Trump – and 31 of those
counties were in Iowa.
Democrats will be hoping to lure back those swing voters in 2020.
Howard County in northern Iowa flipped by 41 percentage points in 2016, the largest change in the US.
Former South Carolina Mark Sanford has become the latest Republican to challenge President Donald Trump in the GOP’s primary contest.
Mark Sanford, a long-time Trump critic, said in an interview announcing his
candidacy: “I’m here to tell you now
that I am going to get in.”
The former governor is the third person to challenge Donald Trump for the
nomination.
However, it is seen as near impossible that anyone will take the Republican
mantle from the president. No sitting president in the modern era has lost the
race to be nominee for their own party, and Donald Trump remains very popular
with Republicans.
The Republican National Convention, at which the nominee will be formally
chosen, will take place in late August 2020 after a series of state primary
elections and party caucuses.
However, some state Republican parties, including in South Carolina, have
decided not to hold primaries in 2020 – to clear the path for Donald Trump and
save money.
Mark Sanford, 59, is expected to
centre his campaign on cutting government debt and spending.
He told Fox News on September 8: “I think we need to have a conversation
on what it means to be a Republican. I think that as a Republican party we have
lost our way.
“We have lost our way on debts and deficits and
spending… The president has called himself the king of debt, has a
familiarity and comfort level with debt that I think is ultimately leading us
in the wrong direction.”
In April, former Massachusetts
Governor Bill Weld became the first person to challenge Donald Trump.
Bill Weld was followed by conservative radio host and former
lawmaker Joe Walsh at the end of August.
Mark Sanford first served in Congress in 1995, representing South Carolina’s
first congressional district. He later served as the state’s governor for two
terms from 2003-2011. He then returned to the House in 2013.
The former governor criticized Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential
election but ultimately supported him. However, Mark Sanford would become one
of his toughest Republican critics in Congress when President Trump took
office.
That stance cost Mark Sanford the Republican primary when his seat was up
for re-election last year. He was beaten by a pro-Trump challenger who went on
to lose the election to her Democrat opponent.
Mark Sanford is known as a fiscal conservative and has been attacked by
President Trump over an extra-marital affair that tainted his second term as
governor.
He went missing for several days, with his staff telling reporters he had
gone to hike the Appalachian Trail.
Mark Sanford later admitted he had instead gone to Argentina to see his
mistress.
Election Day is still more than a year away but the race to become the
Democratic challenger to President Trump is already well under way.
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden have thrown their hats into the ring, but most of the other candidates are relatively unknown outside the Washington DC bubble.
During his roughly 80-minute speech,
President Trump reiterated key themes of his winning 2016 campaign.
The president pledged to continue a
crackdown against illegal immigration, one day after tweeting that US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would soon begin removing
“millions of illegal aliens” from the country.
He told Florida supporters: “We believe our country should be a
sanctuary for law-abiding citizens, not for criminal aliens.”
Donald Trump also accused Democrats
of seeking to legalize illegal immigration in order to boost their voting base,
and said they “want to destroy our country as we know it”.
President Trump described his opponents as a “radical left-wing
mob” who he said would bring socialism to the US.
He told the crowd: “A vote for
any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction
of the American dream.”
President Trump also praised the economy, criticized the Mueller
investigation into alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and
Russia, and referred to media covering the event as “fake news back
there”.
Donald Trump also elicited “lock her up” chants from supporters when he brought up Hillary Clinton, despite her not being in the 2020 race.
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