Trump’s legal challenges

Trump is still trying to overturn the election; the Azerbaijan-Armenia war comes to an abrupt end. Tonight's Sentences was written by Benjamin Rosenberg. TOP NEWS Trump and the GOP still plan to challenge the election results [Attorney General Bill Barr wearing a mask.]( Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty - President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede or even acknowledge that he lost the election to Joe Biden — and a large segment of the Republican Party is going along with him. Trump and his team are pursuing legal challenges to the election results in several key states. [[Reuters / Steve Holland and Simon Lewis](] - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is expected to retain that title after the next Congress begins in January, said Trump is “100 percent within his right” to pursue recounts and legal action, and several Republican attorneys general are also backing the president. [[Washington Post / Amy Gardner, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, and Emma Brown](] - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” And Attorney General Bill Barr gave prosecutors authority to investigate Trump’s baseless voter fraud claims. [[NYT / Katie Benner and Michael S. Schmidt](] - “Most investigations of purported election misconduct are of such a scale that they would not impact the outcome of an election and, thus, an investigation can appropriately be deferred, (but) that is not always the case,” Barr wrote in a memo. [[CNN / Evan Perez](] - Barr’s statement caused Richard Pilger, the head of the Justice Department’s Election Crimes Branch, to resign from his position. Trump still faces a steep climb to 270 electoral votes — he would have to overturn results in three states where Biden leads by at least 10,000 votes. [[Vox / Andrew Prokop](] - Legal experts have said Trump’s case is unlikely to be upheld, for several reasons: Courts are typically hesitant to overturn legally cast ballots, the issues Trump’s team raised don’t raise a constitutional question, and voting by mail is both common and constitutional. [[USA Today / Kevin McCoy, Kristine Phillips, Dennis Wagner, and Donovan Slack](] - For now, the Republican head of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, is blocking the transition process, holding up some crucial resources normally available to a president-elect, until a “clear winner” is determined. [[NPR / Brian Naylor](] [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Azerbaijan-Armenia war ends in victory for Azerbaijan - The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has come to a sudden standstill. Since the war escalated on September 27, between 1,000 and 5,000 people have been killed, but Armenia signed a peace deal with Azerbaijan and Russia on Monday night to end the conflict. [[Vox / Alex Ward](] - It had appeared the war was about to get a lot bloodier, especially for Armenia. Azerbaijan claimed it captured the strategic city of Shusha (also known as Shushi) in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Sunday, leading Armenia to make some of the concessions Azerbaijan was seeking. [[NYT / Andrew E. Kramer](] - Russian President Vladimir Putin brokered the peace agreement, which allows Azerbaijan to retain control of the areas of Nagorno-Karabakh that it captured during the conflict. The region was within Azerbaijan’s Soviet-drawn border but is home to largely ethnic Armenians. [[BBC News](] - The peace deal led to celebrations in Azerbaijan but protests in Armenia. The leader of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, however, said the deal was necessary — Armenia would have lost more lives and potentially the entirety of the region had fighting continued. [[Guardian / Jack Losh and Andrew Roth](] - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said signing the deal was “unspeakably painful,” while Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, wrote on Twitter that “this statement has historic significance … puts an end to the years-long occupation. This statement is our Glorious Victory!” [[Al Jazeera](] MISCELLANEOUS The Supreme Court is likely to uphold the Affordable Care Act for the third time. Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh signaled they will likely side with the Court’s liberals to save the law. [[Vox / Ian Millhiser](] - The US Space Force, the newest branch of the military founded by the Trump administration, will swear in its first officer in space soon. NASA astronaut and Air Force Col. Mike Hopkins will be the Space Force’s first astronaut. [[Axios / Miriam Kramer](] - Russia's Vladimir Putin will not congratulate Joe Biden until Trump’s legal challenges are done. Other authoritarian leaders, including Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and China’s Xi Jinping, have also not congratulated the president-elect. [[Washington Post / Rick Noack](] - Brazil suspended its trials of a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine after a “serious adverse event” involving a volunteer recipient. The announcement comes after the US drugmaker Pfizer announced progress on a potential vaccine on Monday. [[CNN / Nectar Gan](] - Two former popes — John Paul II and Benedict XVI — were aware of sexual misconduct allegations against Theodore McCarrick, a former American cardinal, according to a report from the Vatican. [[NBC News / Claudio Lavanga, Deborah Lubov, and Adela Suliman](] [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( VERBATIM “Notably, the Constitution gives no role in this process to wealthy media corporations. The projections and commentary of the press do not get veto power over the legal rights of any citizen, including the president of the United States.” [[Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on Trump's challenging of the election results](] WATCH THIS [What Joe Biden won – and what he didn't]( Biden beat Trump. Now what? Ezra Klein explains. [[YouTube / Liz Scheltens](] [Read more from Vox](#) [Social media is making a bad political situation worse]( [It’s official: 2020 is the busiest Atlantic Hurricane Season on record]( [Why North and South Dakota are suffering the worst Covid-19 epidemics in the US]( [One pollster’s explanation for why the polls got it wrong]( [3 core myths about eating animals — and why food tech may vanquish them]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [YouTube]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Manage your [email preferences](, or [unsubscribe]( to stop receiving all emails from Vox. 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