Pom­peo: Vote Count Will Lead to ‘2^nd Trump Administration’

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mike Pom­peo on Tues­day voiced con­fi­dence that once every “legal” vote was count­ed, it would lead to a “sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion,” appear­ing to reject Demo­c­rat chal­lenger Joe Biden’s vic­to­ry over Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

He spoke as world lead­ers, includ­ing Wash­ing­ton’s close allies Britain and France, already have con­grat­u­lat­ed Biden. Trump, a Repub­li­can, has so far refused to con­cede and made base­less claims that fraud was mar­ring the results.

“There will be a smooth tran­si­tion to a sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion,” Pom­peo told a State Depart­ment news con­fer­ence. He lat­er sought to assure the world that Amer­i­ca’s post-elec­tion tran­si­tion would be successful.

“We’re going to count all the votes … The world should have every con­fi­dence that the tran­si­tion nec­es­sary to make sure that the State Depart­ment is … suc­cess­ful today and suc­cess­ful when the pres­i­dent who’s in office on Jan­u­ary 20, a minute after noon, will also be successful.”

Biden, due to take office on Jan. 20, 2021, risks a delayed tran­si­tion as Trump has vowed to push ahead with legal chal­lenges to his elec­tion loss. Repub­li­can U.S. law­mak­ers have defend­ed his right to do so.

Asked if Trump’s refusal to con­cede ham­pers State Depart­ment efforts to pro­mote free and fair elec­tions abroad, Pom­peo, a close ally and appointee of Trump’s, said: “This depart­ment cares deeply to make sure that elec­tions around the world are safe and secure and free and fair.”

The lead­ing Repub­li­can in Con­gress, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell, has care­ful­ly backed Trump, say­ing that he was “100% with­in his rights to look into alle­ga­tions of irreg­u­lar­i­ties,” with­out cit­ing any evidence.

And U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr, a Trump appointee who heads the Jus­tice Depart­ment, on Mon­day told fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors to “pur­sue sub­stan­tial alle­ga­tions” of irreg­u­lar­i­ties of vot­ing and the count­ing of ballots.

In his first offi­cial trav­el after the Nov. 3 elec­tion, Pom­peo is due to trav­el to France, Turkey, Geor­gia, Israel, Qatar, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and Sau­di Ara­bia between Nov. 13 – 23. The lead­ers of some of those coun­tries have already con­grat­u­lat­ed Biden.

Source: news​max​.com / Thomson/Reuters