President Donald Trump's personal lawyer urged Michigan Republicans on Wednesday to pressure the GOP-controlled Legislature to "step up" and award the state's 16 electoral votes to Trump amid findings of "massive fraud" giving Democrat Joe Biden a 154,000-vote lead.
Rudy Giuliani claimed "massive fraud, all over the country," before he was expected to testify before the Republican-led legislative committee at 6 p.m. ET. Just a day before, Attorney General William Barr declared the Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.
GOP legislative leaders have said they will not try to replace Michigan's electors.
Giuliani said the U.S. Constitution empowers legislatures to appoint electors directly, even though the legislature long ago passed a law allotting them to the popular vote winner. Biden won the state by 2.8 percentage points. The result was certified by the state's bipartisan election board last week.
"They're the ones who should have the courage to step up," Giuliani said of lawmakers. "You have state legislators who are so frightened that they have a hard time focusing on it. You have got to get them to remember that their oath to the Constitution sometimes requires being criticized. Sometimes it even requires being threatened."
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