Trump news - live: President posts ‘most important’ 46-minute speech filled with false voter fraud claims

As news broke of his attorney general saying there hasn’t been evidence of enough fraud to have overturned the election, Donald Trump continued his call for whistleblowers to come forward.

The president has been tweeting out clips from his newly favourite network, OAN, of a hearing into Michigan’s handling of the election.

In his interview with AP, Barr said people were confusing the use of the federal criminal justice system with allegations that should be made in civil lawsuits.

“Most claims of fraud are very particularized to a particular set of circumstances or actors or conduct. They are not systemic allegations and those have been run down; they are being run down,” Barr said. “Some have been broad and potentially cover a few thousand votes. They have been followed up on.”

As Arizona Governor Doug Ducey certified the state’s 2020 election results on Monday, he got a call from an old friend. An old friend with whom he no longer wanted to speak.

Oliver O’Connell has the story.

The Independent’s Alex Woodward is going deeper on the breaking news from attorney general William Barr.

Trump’s AG William Barr said the Justice Department has not found enough fraud that it would have changed the outcome of the US presidential election.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Barr said the Federal Bureau of Investigations has been following up on specific complaints but have not uncovered fraud widespread enough to have made an impact.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the AP.

While not directly mentioning Kraken-releaser Sidney Powell or her allegations of a Hugo Chavez Dominion conspiracy, Barr said they had also looked into those claims but found nothing to substantiate them.

“There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that,” Mr Barr said.

Story to follow.

The president just tweet-stormed nine rapid-fire tweets from One America News from a hearing on the presidential election happening in Lansing, Michigan.

In Trump’s halcyon days these clips would have been from Fox News, which has largely been ignoring the president’s Hail Mary pass at a contingent election. 

Amid a wave of fierce Republican opposition, President-elect Joe Biden defended picking Neera Tandem as his budget director by contending her “practical experience” will help the pandemic-torn economy bounce back.

The incoming president praised the longtime Clinton adviser’s “brilliant policy mind” and what he called her “practical experience across government” as he formally introduced his economic team.

“She understands the struggles that millions of Americans are facing” due to the coronavirus pandemic, he said, noting that, if confirmed, she would oversee building his first budget, which he contended would “control the virus” and revive the economy.

“They are a reflection of our values,” Ms Tanden said of federal spending plans. “They touch our lives in profound ways. And, sometimes, they make all the difference.”

The Independent’s Washington Bureau Chief John T Bennett is following the story as it unfolds.

The Trump campaign’s promised lawsuit arrived in Wisconsin as it seeks to disqualify some 221,000 ballots in two Democratic counties.

The case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court aims to invalidate ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties, claiming some absentee ballots were cast without voters first submitting a written application, while other incomplete ballots were completed by municipal clerks.

They are also focusing on a “Democracy in the Park” event in which 17,000 ballots were allegedly cast in Madison before in-person voting officially began on 20 October.

None of the Republican-leaning counties that Trump won are being similarly challenged.

The president’s Wisconsin attorney, Jim Troupis, said in a statement to AP that the people of Wisconsin deserve election processes with uniform enforcement of the law.

“During the recount in Dane and Milwaukee counties, we know with absolute certainty illegal ballots have unduly influenced the state’s election results,” Troupis said.

The “We the people convention” published a full-page ad in the Washington Times calling for Donald Trump to enact martial law and hold a new election.

Lin Wood, who is working independently of the Trump campaign with releaser-of-Kraken, Sidney Powell, to challenge election results, said in a tweet the country is headed to civil war lead by communist China to take away Americans’ freedoms.

The ad says: “When the legislators, courts and/or Congress fail to do their duty under the 12th Amendment, you must be ready Mr President to immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote.”

Staunch Trump ally and Fox pundit Geraldo Rivera has called on the president to stop attacking election results or risk costing Republicans control of the Senate.

Appearing on Fox News, Rivera said if voters lose faith in Georgia’s electoral system and don’t show up at January’s run-off elections the GOP could gift the Senate to Democrats.

“The stakes are so very high. They are astronomical. You know, as a person who has been accused of giving the president too much of the benefit of the doubt, I can’t imagine why the Republican senators aren’t rallying around the Georgia Republicans,” Rivera said.

“I think that the president is on the wrong course here. I think he has got to take a real gut check between now and Saturday. With all due respect, and you know I love the guy, but enough is enough now.”

That’s one for the, ahem… vault.

In his first public appearance since breaking his foot, Joe Biden showed off his boot brace to reporters asking how his clipped wing was doing.

“Good, thank you for asking,” Biden responded.