Philadelphia’s lone Republican city commissioner has described as ‘deranged’ the accusations of voter fraud being made by the White House, as he revealed his staff had been receiving death threats as Donald Trump attacks their integrity.
Al Schmidt, one of three city commissioners charged with overseeing elections, told 60 Minutes that he was shocked at the accusations made against him and his team.
‘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.’
He spoke out after Trump doubled down on his claim that the election was stolen from him on Sunday, even as the vote count continued to move against him and Joe Biden shifted into transition mode.
The President tweeted: ‘Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be? We have all learned a lot in the last two weeks!’
Trump is believed to be planning a series of campaign-style rallies during which he will show off obituaries of people who his team say have voted.
On Sunday night Axios reported that the Trump campaign was mobilizing its troops and readying for war.
‘We want to make sure we have an adequate supply of manpower on the ground for man-to-man combat,’ one adviser told Axios.
In addition to the rallies, designed to highlight specific legal challenges, Trump is gathering what was described as ‘a campaign-style media operation’.
George W. Bush also issued a message telling him the election’s outcome was ‘clear’ and Chris Christie, one of the president’s most prominent allies, said it was time for him to show evidence or ‘move on.’
Al Schmidt, the Republican Philadelphia city commissioner, said the attacks felt ‘deranged’
I’m not giving up: Donald Trump saluted supporters waiting for him outside his Sterling, Virginia, golf club, after tweeting a message of defiance to the TV networks and Associated Press calling the election for Joe Biden. Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania is now above 44,000
Trump tweeted yesterday: ‘Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be? We have all learned a lot in the last two weeks!’
Schmidt is pictured on Election Day with Lisa Deeley, one of two other city commissioners
Officials inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Friday morning counting votes
Election workers in Philadelphia sort and count the votes on Sunday
Schmidt, a former senior analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) who held top secret security clearance, has run elections since 2011 and takes pride in modernizing and making more efficient the process.
He said he was saddened by the ‘crazy stuff’ being said.
‘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,’ he said.
Donald Trump dispatched his son Eric and lawyer Rudy Giuliani to Philadelphia to press the president’s claim of fraud.
A record number of people voted by mail in the state, and many of the mail-in ballots were Democrat because Trump told his own supporters not to trust mail-in ballots, and to vote in person instead.
The president was then enraged when the mail-in ballots started being counted, and the pendulum swung away from him.
‘This is absolute fraud,’ said Eric Trump. ‘We’ve seen it in Philadelphia before.’
Giuliani told a press conference at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping that Trump was ‘obviously not gonna concede.’
He said he will start filing lawsuits on Monday.
‘I don’t know if there’s enough evidence to set aside the entire election. Certainly not around the country, maybe in Pennsylvania,’ he said.
A pained-looking Schmidt said he was dismayed by the rhetoric.
Schmidt is seen inspecting the vote counting processes
Protesters outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center demand ‘legal votes only’
‘In the birthplace of our Republic, counting votes is not a bad thing,’ he said.
‘Counting votes cast on or before Election Day by eligible voters is not corruption. It is not cheating. It is democracy.’
He said the argument that votes should not be counted bemused him.
‘There really should not be a disagreement, regardless of party affiliation, when we’re talking about counting votes cast on or before Election Day by eligible voters,’ he said.
‘It’s not a very controversial thing, or at least it shouldn’t be.’
And he revealed that his team had received calls from Trump supporters threatening them over the continued count – a process which will likely take another week.
He said they were receiving calls alleging ‘cheating’ and ‘manipulating the vote’.
‘Or calls to our offices reminding us that ‘This is what the Second Amendment is for, people like us.”
Asked if he interpreted that as a death threat, Schmidt replied: ‘Yes, for counting votes in a democracy.’
Trump supporters protest outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Sunday
Votes are still being counted and sorted inside the room, pictured on Wednesday
Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, is in charge of defending the state from any legal suits launched by the Trump campaign.
He said the Trump campaign wanted two things.
‘Number one, to stop the count and number two, to allow their watchers to get closer to where the envelopes were being opened and scanned,’ he said.
‘On the first issue, being able to stop the count, they failed.
‘And on the second thing – an agreement was reached to move these poll watchers from roughly 10 feet away to roughly six feet away.’
He said that had done nothing to affect the outcome of the vote.
Trump had said that poll watchers needed ‘binoculars’ to be able to observe.
Ben Ginsberg, a Republican lawyer who was part of the legal team in Florida in 2000, successfully arguing the case for George W. Bush, said Trump’s legal team was on shaky ground.
He said there was no comparison to their own efforts in Florida.
‘On the one hand, it’s lawyers reacting to a client who is disjointed and unhinged and not terribly accepting of defeat,’ he said.
‘And on the other extreme, this could be an instance of trying to slow down counts in individual states in the hopes that those states don’t complete their job of certifying election results in time for the electoral college to meet.
‘And then he would go back to something else he’s talked about which is telling legislators to go and vote Trump slates even in states that were won by Biden.’
Asked what he would say to Trump if he could speak to him, Ginsburg replied: ‘Sir, you need to take a step back, look at the results. It is a democracy,’ he said.
‘It is a country that’s been very good to you.
‘And you need to respect the institutions and the greatest institution of all is our elections that lead to the peaceful transfer of power. And you cannot be destructive of that.’
Donald Trump ‘is planning mass rallies where he will brandish the obituaries of dead people he claims voted’ as his legal team prepares for ‘man-to-man combat’
Donald Trump is planning a series of rallies at which he will show off obituaries of people who his team say have voted, according to a report.
The president has made it clear that he does not intend to concede defeat to Joe Biden, despite him being judged by independent media analysts to have no way of winning the election.
He has promised to fight every step through the courts.
On Sunday night Axios reported that the Trump campaign was mobilizing its troops and readying for war.
‘We want to make sure we have an adequate supply of manpower on the ground for man-to-man combat,’ one adviser told Axios.
In addition to the rallies, designed to highlight specific legal challenges, Trump is gathering what was described as ‘a campaign-style media operation’.
Donald Trump, pictured at a rally on November 1, is intending to fight on, Axios reports
Trump has been whipping up his supporters with claims of votes being stolen
Trump’s supporters protest outside the state capital in Lansing, Michigan on Sunday
The media team will be headed by Tim Murtaugh, a former television reporter in Virginia who joined the Trump campaign in February 2019, and now serves as communications director.
One advisor told the site that Murtaugh’s group will issue ‘regular press briefings, releases on legal action and obviously things like talking points and booking people strategically on television.’
In Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania the Trump team is planning fresh legal challenges – many of those raised so far have already been dismissed.
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, Axios said.
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 lead the Trump campaign’s legal charge.
Trump’s formal legal team includes 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien, lawyer Justin Clark, and senior advisers Jason Miller and David Bossie.
Bill Stepien (left), Trump’s campaign manager, will be heavily involved in the efforts
Rudy Giuliani, pictured at the Philadelphia press conference on Saturday, will participate
Donald Trump waves to supporters outside his golf club in Virginia on Sunday
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, who delivered the memorable press conference on Saturday at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, is also fighting Trump’s legal battles.
Biden’s campaign, in turn, has assembled what it described as the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history, with a large team of attorneys ready to fight challenges.
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 — an issue that thousands of Democratic lawyers around the country are also engaged in, according to the Biden campaign.
The campaign also created a special national litigation team involving hundreds of lawyers that will include as leaders Walter Dellinger, a solicitor general in the Clinton administration, and Donald Verrilli, a solicitor general under Obama.
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.
On Sunday night it emerged 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 spokeswoman for GSA, said in an email to the Washington Post, ‘and its Administrator will continue to abide by, and fulfill, all requirements under the law.’