President Donald Trump was set to push ahead yesterday with legal challenges to the results of the previous week's election after US Attorney-General William Barr told federal prosecutors to look into any "substantial" allegations of voting irregularities.
Mr Barr's directive to prosecutors prompted the top lawyer overseeing voter fraud investigations to resign in protest.
It came after days of attacks on the integrity of the election by Mr Trump and Republican allies, who have alleged widespread voter fraud, without providing evidence.
Mr Trump has not conceded the election to Democrat Joe Biden, who last Saturday got more than the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the presidency.
The Trump campaign has filed several lawsuits claiming the election results were flawed. Judges have already tossed out lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia, and experts say Mr Trump's legal efforts have little chance of changing the election result.
Several of the lawsuits claim the Trump campaign was not given sufficient access or a close enough view to monitor vote counting and catch any fraudulent ballots.
Mr Barr told prosecutors on Monday that "fanciful or far-fetched claims" should not be a basis for investigation and his letter did not indicate that the Justice Department had uncovered voting irregularities affecting the outcome of the election.
"Nothing here should be taken as any indication that the department has concluded that voting irregularities have impacted the outcome of any election," he wrote.
But he did say he was authorising prosecutors to "pursue substantial allegations" of irregularities of voting and the counting of ballots.
Before the election, Mr Barr had echoed Mr Trump's unsupported claims that widespread use of mail-in ballots was subject to fraud, including ballots that might be cast by foreign adversaries seeking to influence the election.
But the Attorney-General had remained silent in the days just before and after the previous week's election, until now.
Mr Richard Pilger, who for years has served as director of the Election Crimes Branch, announced in an internal e-mail that he was resigning from his post after he read "the new policy and its ramifications".
Mr Biden's campaign said Mr Barr was fuelling Mr Trump's far-fetched allegations of fraud.
"Those are the very kind of claims that the President and his lawyers are making unsuccessfully every day, as their lawsuits are laughed out of one court after another," said Mr Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to Mr Biden.
Meanwhile, Mr Biden's transition team was considering legal action over a federal agency's delay in recognising the Democrat's victory over Mr Trump in the previous week's election, an official said.
The General Services Administration (GSA) normally recognises a presidential candidate when it becomes clear who has won an election so that a transition of power can begin.
"Legal action is certainly a possibility, but there are other options as well that we're considering," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declining to outline other options.
The delay is costing the Biden team access to millions of dollars in federal funding and the ability to meet officials at intelligence agencies and other departments.
The transition team needs to be recognised to access funds for salaries, consultants and travel, as well as access to classified information, the official said.
In addition, the team has no access to the State Department, which usually facilitates calls between foreign leaders and the president-elect, the official said.
That has not yet happened despite US television and news networks declaring Mr Biden the winner last Saturday after he won enough electoral college votes to secure the presidency.
The law doesn't clearly spell out when the GSA must act, but Mr Biden's transition officials say their victory is clear and a delay is not justified, even as Mr Trump refuses to concede defeat.
GSA administrator Emily Murphy, appointed by Mr Trump in 2017, has not yet determined that "a winner is clear", a spokesman said.
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG