Our live coverage has ended. Read more about the Biden transition here.
The public should expect a “flurry” of pardons before President Trump leaves office, as has happened at the end of previous administrations, a source close to the White House said.
This source, familiar with discussions on the matter, also said some of the President’s advisers believe that it would perfectly fine for Trump to pardon his family members and other associates preemptively, even though they haven’t been charged with any crimes.
The source pointed to the case of Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon who resigned during the Watergate scandal. Nixon had not been charged with a crime when he was pardoned.
The source went on to say some of the President’s advisers believe that Trump could legally pardon himself, an assertion that’s disputed by some constitutional scholars. But it’s an indication where the President’s head may be on what would be an unprecedented use of the pardon power.
CNN’s Jim Acosta reports:
President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday afternoon held a virtual roundtable with workers and small business owners who have been affected by the economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
“I know times are both tough, but I believe that with the right policies we can fundamentally change things,” Biden said during the event. “And my hope is that we’ll be able to help in a short order, but that depends a lot on our friends in Congress, the other side, who are prepared to take the action has to be taken.”
Biden heard from Lorie Alexander, a school crossing guard in Chicago; Karen Coffey, a server in Michigan; Dan Jacobs, an owner in the hospitality business in Wisconsin; and Jessica Gavin, a stagehand in Georgia. All spoke about the challenges and uncertainty they have faced in the pandemic.
But, he said, his transition team has already been working on what he will put forward in the next Congress to address the economic crisis and the response to the coronavirus pandemic. He also spoke about readying plans to distribute a vaccine across the nation once one becomes available.
In the meantime, the President-elect called on Congress to come together and immediately pass a robust package of relief to address Americans’ urgent needs, including providing states and citifies with necessary funding. He spoke about the importance of providing economic assistance to workers and businesses and helping businesses open safely.
Biden criticized the Trump administration for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the early weeks and months.
The President-elect also issued a stern warning about holiday travel. “You cannot be traveling during these holidays, as much as you want to,” Biden said. He spoke of his own small Thanksgiving dinner and urged Americans to heed the advice of medical experts and forego big gatherings around the holidays to protect against the spread of the virus.
Watch more:
Georgia Secretary of State’s office will start posting recount results to its website within the hour, according to Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting implementation manager.
Of Georgia’s 159 counties, 132 have finished recount efforts.
Sterling said that their office made an “executive decision” this afternoon to wait until now to start to put the results out.
“If we put out the election night voting for the recount, guess what the small counties are done first, so what does that mean when we make it live? President Trump would have a big lead. And they would say, oh look it’s happening again. Yes, it’s happening again because it is basically you are watching the repeat of the same movie,” Sterling said.
Results from the 132 counties will be seen immediately when they are uploaded to the secretary of state’s website. As the counties continue to upload the results, the secretary of state will continue to upload them on their website.
“They all will get done by tomorrow and meet the deadlines of Friday to recertify and the state will meet its deadline of recertifying by Friday afternoon, “ Sterling said. “The governor will do his ascertainment and send the paperwork back to DC.”
To note: There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Georgia, which Biden won by more than 12,000 votes. Nearly 5 million votes were cast statewide.
President-elect Joe Biden is participating in a virtual roundtable in Wilmington, Delaware, with workers and small business owners impacted by the economic crisis.
The event comes a day after Biden introduced key members of his economic team at an event, including Janet Yellen, who would be the first woman to serve as Treasury secretary.
Biden stressed the need to help businesses and schools open safely, and deliver immediate economic relief to the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in the pandemic.
The President-elect said his transition team “is already working on what I’ll put forward in the next Congress to address the multiple crises we are facing, especially our economic and Covid crises.”
The Defense Department has provided office space to personnel from the incoming Biden-Harris administration and they “were given a brief tour of their office spaces this week,” Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough said in a statement Wednesday.
In addition, the department’s transition task force has also accommodated the “processing of temporary badges, non-disclosure agreements and other administrative matters,” as well as “preparing responses to the initial requests for information” from representatives of the incoming administration, and “coordinating requested interviews” between current Pentagon officials and the incoming team.
The spokesperson also noted that the DOD Agency Transition director and key members of the DOD Transition Task Force held their first virtual meeting with the Agency Review Team leadership on Nov. 25.
US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn on Wednesday said he has not heard from “anyone” from President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.
Hahn confirmed he attended a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, but declined to say who he met with.
Asked whether he thought he would stay on in his position under a Biden administration, Hahn said, “I am not expecting that.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters on Wednesday that she’s not aware of reported efforts President Trump may be making to pursue a reelection bid in 2024.
McEnany said she was not aware of the President planning to announce his 2024 candidate before or on Inauguration Day at the White House.
McEnany also said she hadn’t spoken to the President about comments related to what he said Tuesday night, presumably at a reception talking about “another four years.”
She redirected the reporter asking about the 2024 run to the campaign.
A group of Hispanic lawmakers in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are gathering signatures for a letter to send to President-elect Joe Biden asking him to appoint either Xavier Becerra, current attorney general of California, or Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, to serve as the US Attorney General in his Cabinet.
This is part of an effort by the CHC to put pressure on Biden to select a more diverse cabinet.
The group is still gathering signatures and has not yet submitted the letter.
CNN also obtained a letter for Jeffrey Zients, the co-chair of the Biden transition, from CHC leadership, sent Nov. 19 asking Biden to appoint five Latinos to his initial Cabinet and to appoint at least one Latino to one of the top four Cabinet positions.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham meanwhile is the leading contender to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, people familiar with the matter tell CNN, and is expected to be nominated for one of the most critical roles in Biden’s Cabinet.
Members of the CHC had publicly pushed Biden to pick Lujan Grisham, sending a letter to Biden’s transition team lobbying for her selection.
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, Dan Merica, Kristen Holmes and Jeremy Herb contributed reporting to this post.
The NAACP, along with other civil rights groups, has requested time with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to discuss among other things the importance of appointing Black nominees to the Biden administration, NAACP spokesperson Marc Banks told CNN.
While they have not heard back from the transition team about their request, Banks said they are optimistic about getting a meeting scheduled for the near future.
These groups are also eager to discuss the issues that are important to communities of color, like environmental and social justice matters and the accessibility of safe drinking water for vulnerable communities, Banks added.
This comes as the Biden transition team is facing lobbying from multiple directions as he builds out his administration to appoint more people of color to senior roles. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, for example, wrote a letter to the transition team asking that New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham be nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
A Biden transition official told CNN that they had been engaged with the NAACP LDF and the National Urban League.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is the leading contender to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, people familiar with the matter tell CNN. She is expected to be nominated for one of the most critical roles in President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet.
An announcement could be made as soon as next week, officials say, although the timing of the decision is also contingent on the naming of other positions. The secretary of Health and Human Services will play a central role in the coronavirus pandemic, which elevated her in the eye of the Biden transition given her experience leading New Mexico’s fight.
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have publicly pushed Biden to pick Lujan Grisham, sending a letter to Biden’s transition team lobbying for her selection.
While Biden has faced considerable pressure to nominate Lujan Grisham to become Health and Human Services secretary, a Biden adviser said her credentials put her atop the list to run the sprawling agency – long before the public lobbying campaign began. She has served as a state health secretary in New Mexico, a member of Congress and governor.
Lujan Grisham was also among the candidates vetted by the Biden campaign over the summer during the vice presidential search.
She was driven to focus on health care because her sister, Kimberly, was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was two years old and died of the disease nearly two decades later at 21. Lujan Grisham’s husband, Gregory Grisham, also died of a brain aneurysm in 2004.
Lujan Grisham has said her experiences with her sister and the subsequent debt her family was saddled with due to her illness and treatment has “inspired” her to dedicate her life to improve affordable health care.
Dr. Vivek Murthy, a key adviser to Biden on coronavirus and a former surgeon general, has fallen out of contention for the HHS Secretary role, people familiar with the matter say. He has expressed interest in leading the Centers for Disease Control, which is not a Senate-confirmed position.
In 2014, Murthy faced a brutal confirmation battle to become surgeon general, largely over comments he made on gun control. His confirmation languished for months, with three Democrats ultimately voting against him, including Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia. The other two, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, have since been defeated.
Dr. Nicole Lurie, who also has been advising the Biden campaign, is also seen as a candidate to lead the CDC, people familiar with the matter say.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has launched an investigation to stop several groups that they say are registering individuals who are ineligible to cast ballots in January’s Senate runoffs. The key election will decide which party controls the Senate.
The investigation includes the organizations of America Votes, Vote Forward, and The New Georgia Project.
According to the secretary of state’s office, the organizations have “repeatedly and aggressively sought to register ineligible, out of state, or deceased voters before the January 5th Senate runoff elections.”
Georgia’s Deputy Press Secretary Jordan Fuchs said that over the last few weeks, their office has received hundreds of reports of absentee ballot requests that are being sent to people who don’t actually live in households.
At his news conference Wednesday morning, Raffensperger said his deceased son actually received three post cards from the New Georgia Project yesterday.
In a written statement on Nov. 30, The New Georgia Project denied any wrongdoing.
“Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, resurrected a tired and false claim against the New Georgia Projects legitimate efforts to register eligible Georgians to participate in elections,” they wrote.
Gabriel Sterling, voting Implementation manager in Georgia, says that there is still no timeline on when the investigation will be complete.
“When you keep on kicking over rocks and keep on finding new things, it always expands the timeline on the investigation.” Sterling said Wednesday morning. “Third party groups have every right to register people. They don’t have a right to encourage people to break the law, to confuse and frighten people by sending things to their dead relatives, and then it undermines the overall confidence in the system the same way President Trump’s comments are.”
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have sent a letter to President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team lobbying for New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to be nominated for the role of health and human services secretary.
The letter, signed by 32 members of Congress, including Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, commends Biden for selecting Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas, the first Latino and first immigrant to be nominated for Homeland Security secretary, calling it a “good start” for Latino representation.
But the letter notes the Latino population is incredibly varied, pointing to a statistic that indicates Mexican Americans make up more than 60% of the US Latino population, and suggests that Lujan Grisham, who is of Mexican American descent, be considered for the crucial Cabinet role.
Axios earlier reported on the letter.
Shortly after the Democratic presidential primary ended and it became clear that Biden would be the nominee, he faced pressure from activists to choose a Latina as his running mate.
Lujan Grisham, the first Latina Democratic governor in the United States, was one of two likely candidates who were considered before Biden chose Sen. Kamala of California, who is America’s first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president-elect.
Lujan Grisham deflected when asked on Tuesday by CNN’s Don Lemon on “CNN Tonight” whether she is being vetted for the position.
Here’s who Biden has selected for his Cabinet so far.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says that he anticipates that all 159 counties in the state will finish their recount by the midnight deadline tonight.
Raffensperger said that 110 counties have finished their work on the recount as of this morning, and that the results will begin to be posted to their website starting at 2 p.m. ET this afternoon.
Georgia’s secretary of state’s office says they plan to re-certify their presidential election results on Friday afternoon.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Georgia, which Joe Biden won by more than 12,000 votes. Nearly 5 million votes were cast statewide.
Watch Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s update:
A long list of Georgia Republicans have released a lengthy statement begging Georgia voters to shift their focus to the runoff elections in January that will determine which party controls the Senate.
Among the signatories to the statement is ex-Senator Jonny Isakson whose old seat is one of the two up for grabs in the runoff.
The statement does not specifically mention President Trump’s ill-fated effort to overturn the results of the November election, but it alludes to the lingering issues the President’s rhetoric has created.
“We have watched with increasing concern as the debate surrounding the state’s electoral system has made some within our Party consider whether voting in the coming run-off election matters, ” the statement reads.
Republicans are increasingly worried that the President’s supporters will either boycott the election in protest or may choose to not to participate because they do not trust the system.
In addition to Isakson, ex-Senators Saxby Chambliss and Mack Mattingly signed on to the statement as did former Gov. Nathan Deal.
Former Congressman Bob Barr and Jack Kingston are also signatories. Kingston remains a loyal supporter of President Trump and has echoed his unfounded concerns that there was fraud conducted in the November election.
Officials with the National Security Council were informed late Tuesday to finalize their binders for transition and submit them for legal clearance, according to an administration official. The binders then must be sent to the Office of the Executive Secretary no later than Thursday, the official said.
The binders would typically then be handed over to officials with Joe Biden’s landing team who are working with President-elect Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
What’s in these binders: They typically do not contain information on highly sensitive matters, but rather, provide a broad overview of the work done in recent years, as well as basic information on NSC processes.
The focus of the political world has increasingly turned to what’s happening in Georgia for one key reason: the January 5 runoff election will decide which party controls the Senate.
If either of the incumbent Republicans — Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue — hold onto their seats, the party will retain its majority control in the chamber.
If Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock both prevail, however, Democrats would gain control of the Senate thanks to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
Trump is slated to travel to the Peach State on Saturday to campaign for Loeffler and Perdue. Former President Barack Obama meanwhile is prominently featured in a new television ad for Ossoff, pitching him as an injustice-fighting crusader who will pass a new Voting Rights Act and “listen to the experts” in combating the coronavirus pandemic.
More than 940,000 mail-in ballots have been requested in Georgia for the runoff election. Georgia voters are required to request absentee ballots again for the runoff, even if they voted absentee in November, except those over the age of 65, members of the military or physically disabled people who requested absentee ballots for the entire election cycle.
Loeffler and her Democratic challenger Warnock have both accepted an invitation to participate in a debate this Sunday. Perdue declined an invitation to debate Ossoff.
Republicans are struggling to encourage voters to back incumbent Kelly and Perdue as Trump continues to cast doubt on the results of the presidential election.
Since the election, President Trump has been discussing with advisors about pre-emptively pardoning several people close to him, including his children, son-in-law and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a source familiar confirmed to CNN.
The potential pardon list includes others who are close to the President and could be legally vulnerable but have not been charged.
The New York Times and ABC first reported the discussions about pre-emptive pardons for Giuliani, Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
Trump Jr. had been under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for contacts he had with Russians, but was never charged.
Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner provided false information about his foreign contacts when applying for his security clearance, but President Trump issued him one anyway.
The President has told advisors he feels he and his family have been unfairly targeted and that he’s concerned the legal pursuits could continue under President-elect Joe Biden’s Justice Department. Lawyers and allies of the President have been lobbying him for pardons ranging from their personal clients to people who Vice President-elect Kamala Harris put behind bars, according to multiple people. She was a state prosecutor and pardons only apply to federal crimes.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
CNN’s John Harwood reports:
President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team on Tuesday announced more senior positions on his inauguration committee. Inauguration Day is 49 days away and is expected to be a more scaled back event due to the pandemic.
First shared with CNN, the new additions to the team — which will plan the celebration and activities surrounding the President-elect’s swearing-in on Jan. 20 — comprise a diverse group of staff who worked on Biden’s campaign in various roles.
This senior staff joins the group Biden announced Monday, which includes chief executive officer Tony Allen, executive director Maju Varghese and deputy executive directors Erin Wilson and Yvanna Cancela.
More details on the event itself will be announced in the coming days and weeks, according to the committee.
Inaugural committees operate as nonprofits and federal law does not impose limits on the size of contributions they can accept, but the committee has decided it will accept corporate contributions of up to $1 million to help fund Biden’s swearing-in festivities, according to an inaugural committee official involved in the planning. It has also capped donations from individuals at $500,000 apiece, the official said.
Read more here.
The Justice Department is investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court records unsealed Tuesday in federal court.
The case is the latest legal twist in the waning days of President Trump’s administration after several of his top advisers have been convicted of federal criminal charges and as the possibility rises of Trump giving pardons to those who’ve been loyal to him.
Here are key things to know:
The White House declined to comment on the court filing.
CNN has previously reported that associates of the President are making appeals to him in the hopes of obtaining pardons before he leaves office. There is no indication that any of those associates are being investigated by DOJ in relation to Tuesday’s filing.
Read the full story here and read the court filing on the DOJ pardon investigation here.
President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration is next month, and preparations have begun on what likely will be a scaled back event due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump meanwhile has declined to offer a timeline for when he might ease up his losing battle to overturn the election results and has not said whether he will attend Biden’s inauguration.
Here’s a look at some key dates from now until Inauguration Day:
Dec. 8
Dec. 14
Dec. 23
Jan. 3
Jan. 6
Jan. 20
