US Senate's McConnell says Trump is within his rights to probe election 'irregularities'

Despite President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell on November 9 said that Republican incumbent Donald Trump is well within his rights to look into charges of “irregularities” in the election result. Trump has yet to acknowledge defeat two days after Biden secured enough votes in the state-by-state Electoral College to win. He has declined to concede and is mounting legal fights, but there has been no indication or evidence of voter irregularities or fraud in the election. 

In his a speech on the Senate floor, McConnell said that President Trump is “100% within his rights” to look into allegations of “irregularities” and weigh his legal options. While he did not acknowledge Biden as president-elect not his running mate Kamala Harris as vice president-elect, he, however, took a swipe at media outlets that called the election for the Demarcation leader. McConnell said that the Constitution gives no role in this process to wealthy media corporations. 

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“Let’s not have any lectures. No lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept the preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last one,” McConnell was quoted saying by media outlets. 

Just a handful of Senate Republicans have so far congratulated Biden on his victory. McConnell’s comments were his first public remarks after the Democratic leader was declared the winner on Saturday. The Associated Press had called Biden as the winner with a clear majority of 290 electoral votes as opposed to 214 for the Republican leader. 

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Biden’s win leaves Republicans divided 

Republicans in the United States appear to be divided on the projected win by President-elect Joe Biden even as President Donald Trump refused to accept defeat and claimed widespread voter fraud. While some Grand Old Party (GOP) lawmakers were more accepting of Biden's lead on Sunday, others supported Trump's narrative of voter fraud, calling for legal challenges by his campaign.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah congratulated Biden on his win on Saturday, although he said that Trump will 'keep on fighting until the very end'. "You're not going to change the nature of President Trump in these last days, apparently, of his presidency," Romney said. Soon after Biden was projected to be the next US President, Trump refused to accept defeat, saying that the election was "far from over", and promised legal challenges by his re-election campaign. Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan said on Sunday that though any potential evidence of widespread voter fraud should be released, but it would not reverse the projected election results.

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