Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates

In a post-election briefing Friday morning, Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to the Biden team, tore into Trump’s strategy of trying to influence Michigan lawmakers to subvert the will of its voters but maintained that "there's no way whatsoever" Trump will be successful in overturning the election. 

“It's an abuse of office, it's an open attempt to intimidate election officials. It's absolutely appalling -- actually in the context of all these losses and the record of failure that I just described -- it's also pathetic. But, having said all of that, it will be unsuccessful,” Bauer said. 

Bauer, former White House counsel in the Obama administration, said no state legislature in history has attempted to subvert the will of its voters and appoint their own slate of electors to send to Washington when the Electoral College meets in December. 

“Now, the reason it's never happened before, is that it cannot be done. The Constitution does not permit a state legislature to do what Donald Trump wants the Michigan State Legislature to do,” Bauer said. “Not possible, not legal, not constitutional, cannot happen.”

He warned that Trump's ongoing lawsuits aren’t enough to change results but will harm election credibility. He took aim at the press conference held by Trump’s attorneys at the Republican National Committee Thursday, calling it an “embarrassment.”

“The political claims they’re making are bordering on the ludicrous and the absolutely comic. Anybody who wanted to treat themselves to the theater of the absurd tuned in,” he said. "While the president and his allies are ripping at the fabric of democracy any way they can, the fabric is not tearing. It is holding firm."

Bauer also said the “targeting of the African American community" by the Trump campaign "is not subtle,” referring to lawsuits and recounts in predominantly Black counties which overwhelmingly went for Biden.

"It's quite remarkable how brazen it is," Bauer said. "This is straight out discriminatory behavior."

-ABC News' John Verhovek, Molly Nagle and Beatrice Peterson

Despite the Trump adminstration blocking his ascertainment as president-elect, Biden is forging ahead with his transition to the White House, announcing four new members of his incoming senior staff Friday morning. 

Carlos Elizondo will serve as White House social secretary, the first Latino American appointed to the position. He served worked as a special assistant to the president and social secretary to the vice president for all eight years of the Obama-Biden administration.

Cathy Russell, who sits on the advisory board of the Biden-Harris transition team and worked on the campaign, is joining as director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. Russell served at the White House and Department of State throughout the Obama-Biden administration. 

Louisa Terrell will serve as director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. She served as a special assistant to the president for Legislative Affairs in the Obama-Biden administration and worked for several years on Capitol Hill.

The Biden campaign also announced Jill Biden’s policy director, Mala Adiga, who served as a senior adviser to Jill Biden and a senior policy adviser on the Biden-Harris campaign. 

As speculation soars surrounding Biden's cabinet, he revealed on Thursday that he and his team have made a decision on who will serve as the Treasury Secretary and said it would be announced just before or just after Thanksgiving, adding that it will be someone who will be accepted across the Democratic Party.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle

After Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said on CNN Friday morning that House Speaker Lee Chatfield texted her while she was on air and said he hasn't confirmed if he will be heading to the White House, a source familiar confirms that he is still going to Washington for an expected meeting with Trump.

"I know both the speaker and the senate majority leader well. They're folks who do respect the law. They're folks who is do follow the rule of law. And so, again, you know, I'll take their public statements for what they are, which is that they've said that they stand with the will of the voters," Benson said.

Amid the confusion over whether the speaker was still going, the Senate Leader was spotted at the airport Friday morning and was met by a few protesters, who were chanting "protect our votes" while holding signs that say "uphold our democracy," according to video shot by local reporter Charlie Langton.

During Benson's interview, asked if she has any concerns about the pressure Trump could put on the two GOP leaders in a one-on-one meeting, she said "regardless of anyone's power of persuasion, you can't persuade away the facts and the truth." 

"It's very clear that the voters of Michigan have spoken, the election has occurred, the vote has been tabulated and tallied very securely, very accurately. There's no legal or factual basis to question that. There's been no irregularities, no widespread fraud, despite significant scrutiny and folks looking for that," she continued. 

She also reiterated again that every county has certified "despite some confusion" -- a nod to the back-and-forth in Wayne County.

-ABC News' Kendall Karson

Running out of legal options to override an election loss, Trump is resorting to raw political pressure -- using the powers and prestige of the presidency to target battleground states and try to overturn the results of the election.

In an extraordinary last-ditch gambit, Trump has invited Republican members of the Michigan Legislature to the White House Friday, as he attempts to thwart the electoral process in a state Biden won by more than 150,000 votes.

The aim appears to be for Trump to influence the lawmakers ahead of the state's board of canvassers meeting on Monday so they would try to override the certification of the state’s vote -- setting up the potential for the GOP-controlled legislature to choose its own slate of pro-Trump electors to vote for the president at the Electoral College's December meeting.

The prospect of the Michigan legislature intervening in a process that it is not involved in by state law is not one that has been publicly embraced in Lansing. And on Capitol Hill, at least one Republican is slamming Trump’s decision. 

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican who voted to remove Trump from office during his impeachment trial, eviscerated the White House invitation, saying, “It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.”

Trump is putting similar pressure on Georgia's GOP Gov. Brian Kemp -- who, following a hand-count audit affirming Biden as the winner, now must sign the state’s vote certification by Friday at 5 p.m. -- calling on him a tweet to "get tough." Trump could request a recount in the state, but he still trails Biden by just over 12,000 votes. 

The president may try to flip Arizona as well -- where the state's GOP governor has said he wait until the legal challenges play out -- but with a string of, so far, unsuccessful legal challenges to the results from and unsubstantiated claims of fraud from the Trump campaign and its allies, there are no viable pathways left for the president. 

Trump, who typically relishes in the spotlight, has largely hunkered inside the White House since the election, but he may break his silence on Biden’s transition with a public appearance at 2:30 p.m. to talk prescription drug prices.

Biden, meanwhile, is pressing forward with what he can while the Trump administration continues to stonewall his ascertainment. He’s meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in Wilmington, Delaware, Friday where they’re expected to address Trump and the prospects for passing another COVID-19 relief bill that Biden wants. 

It all comes as Senior House Democrats seek to have Emily Murphy, the embattled administrator of the General Services Administration, explain why she's refused to formally acknowledge Biden apparent victory over Trump -- and are demanding a briefing from her by Monday.