Trump campaign asks supporters for funds to launch legal battle

Donald Trump’s campaign has asked supporters for contributions to help pay for legal challenges brought by the president in the wake of the November 3 presidential election. 

Trump pledged to launch a legal fight as his Democratic rival Joe Biden inches closer to winning the US presidency.

“We need your help to ensure we have the resources to protect the results and keep fighting even after Election Day,” the Trump campaign said in a statement on its website.

The campaign said the president believed that the “Democrats want to steal this election” and that “there will be fraud like you’ve never seen, plain and simple!”

Trump says ‘will not give up fighting’

US President Trump has vowed to continue his legal fight as Joe Biden could soon be declared winner of the presidential election.

The campaign requested contributions to send cash to the  “Official Election Defense Fund.”

Similarly, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced its plan to raise at least $60 million to fund legal challenges brought by Trump.

"They want $60 million," an anonymous Republican donor, who received solicitations from the campaign and the RNC, told Reuters.

Two other anonymous sources told the news agency that the Trump campaign aimed to raise as much as $100 million for the joint fundraising committee it maintains with the RNC.

Analysts expect the Trump campaign to launch massive legal action against Biden's team.

The call for funds comes as both the Trump and Biden campaigns recruit the best lawyers in the country to go to a potentially lengthy legal battle over the results of the election.

So far, Biden's campaign has recruited a list of top litigators including former White House counsel Bob Bauer, former deputy White House counsel Dana Remus and election law giant Marc Elias.

Also in Biden's legal team are former solicitors general Walter Dellinger III and Donald Verrilli Jr., plus former Attorney General Eric Holder.

The Trump campaign, however, has reportedly failed to recruit top attorneys considered household names.

On board Trump's legal team is Mark “Thor” Hearne II, former President George W. Bush’s national legal election counsel.

Trump's legal team has filed a barrage of lawsuits in several battleground states in an effort to win reelection with the help of the court judges.

Trump has no plans to immediately concede election defeat: Aide

A senior White House aide says President Donald Trump has no plans to immediately concede his possible election defeat to his Democratic rival.

The Trump campaign said it had deployed legal teams to Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and North Carolina.

“[T]his election is not over,” the Trump campaign claimed in a press release on Friday.

Trump's claims of fraud rock GOP 

Some of Trump's fellow Republicans have criticized the president for his baseless accusations of fraud in the US presidential election.

Senator Mitt Romney, a former Republican presidential candidate who has been strongly critical of Trump, slammed the incumbent's efforts to remain in power at all costs.

"He is wrong to say that the election was rigged, corrupt and stolen," Romney said in a statement.

Trump's behavior was doing damage to "the institutions that lie at the foundation of the republic, and recklessly inflames destructive and dangerous passions," Romney said.

Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania also described Trump's claims of  election fraud as "very disturbing" in an interview on Friday.

"The president's speech last night was very disturbing to me because he made very, very serious allegations without any evidence to support it," Toomey told CBS's This Morning.

Representative Will Hurd of Texas, a former CIA undercover officer, issued strong criticism, saying that Trump's unproved allegations were "dangerous."

"It undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon," Hurd wrote on Twitter.

Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, wrote on Twitter, "STOP spreading debunked misinformation... This is getting insane."

Republican strategist Karl Rove, who helped George W. Bush win the 2000 presidential election, also mocked Trump, saying the kind of election fraud alleged by by the president would require a James Bond-like conspiracy.

On Friday morning, however, Senate majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, released a statement in this regard, confirming that the legal battle between Trump and Biden had to be resolved in court.

He said ballots needed to be counted with both sides observing the process; however, deciding the winner was up to the court. 

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