Washington – US prosecutors are asking Attorney General William Barr to rescind a memo issued earlier this week that instructed them to publicly investigate “substantial” allegations of vote counting irregularities, saying they have not seen the unusual activity, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
The 16 assistant US attorneys specially assigned to monitor the presidential election this month also said Barr’s Monday memorandum had thrust prosecutors into partisan politics and that the policy change was not based in fact, according to the Post, which saw a copy of the letter.
Barr sent his memo after days of attacks on the integrity of the election by President Donald Trump and Republican allies, who have alleged without evidence that there was widespread voter fraud.
Trump has not conceded the election to Democrat Joe Biden, who on Saturday secured more than the 270 votes in the Electoral College needed to win the presidency.
Biden solidified his election victory on Friday by winning the state of Georgia, and Trump said “time will tell” if another administration takes over soon, the closest he has come to acknowledging Biden could succeed him.
Edison Research, which made the Georgia call, also projected that North Carolina, the only other battleground state with an outstanding vote count, would go to Trump, finalising the electoral vote tally at 306 for Biden to 232 for Trump.
The numbers gave Biden, a Democrat, a resounding defeat of Trump in the Electoral College, equal to the 306 votes that Trump, a Republican, won to defeat Hillary Clinton in a 2016 victory Trump called a “landslide.”
At a White House event where he predicted a coronavirus vaccine would be available for the whole population by April, Trump edged closer to acknowledging he might leave the White House in January but stopped short.
“This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully the, uh, whatever happens in the future - who knows which administration it will be? I guess time will tell,” Trump said in his first public remarks since Biden was projected as the election’s winner on November 7.
Trump did not take questions after the event.
Reuters