Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label Trump election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trump election. Show all posts

Friday, November 25, 2016

Trump election: Request for Wisconsin vote recount sent


  • Nov 26, 2016  01H:12  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
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  • From the sectionUS & Canada
Donald TrumpImage copyrightAP
Image captionDonald Trump has not commented publicly on the recounts issue
by Suzanne Gould and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Madison, Wisconsin
The election commission in Wisconsin has received a request for a recount of the votes in the state narrowly won by Donald Trump more than two weeks ago.
The request was filed by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.
Dr Stein has also pledged to file vote recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
A win by Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin alone would not overturn Mr Trump's lead - it provides only 10 votes in the crucial electoral college that gave him victory in the 8 November election.
But wins in Wisconsin, Michigan (16 electoral votes) and Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) would have clinched the presidency for the Democrat.

$7m fundraising target

In a tweet, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said: "The Commission has received the Stein and Del La Fuente recount petitions."
It added that details would be released shortly.
Meanwhile, Dr Stein tweeted that the recount would begin next week. Friday was the deadline for the request.
Green party nominee Jill Stein speaks during a campaign rally in New York City, 12 OctoberImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionThe Green Party's Jill Stein is leading the campaign for recounts
Dr Stein's campaign needs to raise millions of dollars to cover the fees for the vote recount in all three states.
Dr Jill's website says nearly $5.3m (£4.2m) has already been raised toward a $7m target. It says this is enough to fund the recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Voting rights lawyers who urged candidates to request recounts, John Bonifaz and J Alex Halderman, have said the results need to be closely analysed.
The fact that the results in the three states was different from what polls predicted was "probably not" down to hacking, Mr Halderman said. Concerns over possible Russian interference had been expressed in the run-up to the vote.
"The only way to know whether a cyber-attack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence ," he wrote.
Pennsylvania's deadline is Monday, and Michigan's is Wednesday.
US officials have said there was no evidence of election tampering in the three states where Republican candidate Donald Trump had razor-thin victories over his Democratic rival.
Mr Trump's camp has made no public comments on the recounts issue.
Hillary Clinton. Photo: 16 November 2016Image copyrightAP
Image captionHillary Clinton has conceded defeat in the presidential elections
Mr Trump won 290 electoral votes in the November election, while Mrs Clinton had 232 votes.
Michigan is yet to declare final results.

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Friday, November 18, 2016

Trump election: Who is Jeff Sessions, US attorney general nominee?


  • Nov 18, 2016  18H:44  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
    •  
  • From the sectionUS & Canada
Media captionJeff Sessions is a former federal prosecutor

by Rochelle van Amber and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Washington DC
President-elect Donald Trump has named longtime ally US Senator Jeff Sessions to become his attorney general.
But allegations of racism that have dogged Mr Sessions' career could make for an uncomfortable Senate confirmation hearing.
The right-wing, anti-illegal immigration senator from Alabama was one of Mr Trump's earliest supporters in his White House bid.
As a fervent supporter, he was a senior adviser to the New York tycoon on politics, national security and policy.
He is also one of the vice-chairmen on Mr Trump's presidential transition team.

KKK joke

At his victory bash in New York, Mr Trump said of Mr Sessions, "he is highly respected in Washington because he is as smart as you get".
Born Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions III, the 69-year-old has served as a senator for nearly two decades.
He was Alabama's attorney general before he joined the Senate in 1996.
He sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Judiciary Committee and the Budget Committee.
Senator Jeff Sessions speaks to members of the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in the Manhattan.Image copyrightREUTERS
Image captionSenator Sessions was one of Mr Trump's earliest supporters
The hardline lawmaker, who helped Mr Trump craft his foreign policy plan, was one of the few Republicans to come to Mr Trump's defence after he proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US.
Mr Sessions said Mr Trump was "treading on dangerous ground", but that it was "appropriate to begin to discuss" the issue.
The senator's past remarks about race have drawn scrutiny and proved a roadblock in his political career.
A Senate committee denied Mr Sessions a federal judgeship in 1989 after lawmakers heard testimony that he had used a racial slur.
He had also joked about the Klu Klux Klan, saying he thought they were "OK, until he learned that they smoked marijuana".
Mr Sessions was also accused of calling a black assistant US attorney "boy" and telling him to be careful about how he spoke to "white folks".
He denied to the committee ever having called the lawyer "boy" and insisted he had merely advised him to be cautious about what he said to "folks".
Mr Sessions also did not deny claims that he had labelled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People "un-American" and "communist-inspired".

Immigration hardliner

He has spent much of his career fighting immigration battles, ranging from amnesty bills on creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants to visa programmes for foreign workers.
Mr Sessions supports limiting legal immigration, arguing it protects American jobs.
He also backs Mr Trump's plan to build a wall along the US-Mexican border.
In a 2005 Washington Post op-ed, he argued that "Legal immigration is the primary source of low-wage immigration into the United States" and that the country needed immigration moderation, "slowing the pace of new arrivals so that wages can rise, welfare rolls can shrink and the forces of assimilation can knit us all more closely together".
Much of his strident views on immigration were laid out last year in his 25-page manifesto, "Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority".
In the report, he argues immigration was responsible for job loss and welfare dependency and called claims by tech entrepreneurs that immigrant workers with elite skills were part of the innovation process a "hoax".

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Trump elected

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