Trump rages at 'bad things' in counting rooms, claims he 'won this election by a lot'
Washington: US President Donald Trump on Saturday repeated his allegations of electoral fraud by claiming without evidence that "bad things happened" inside the counting rooms and tens of thousands of votes were illegally received in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Trump has repeatedly attempted to question the validity of vote counts in key swing states and made unfounded claims that the election is being "stolen" from him.
"Bad things took place during those hours where LEGAL TRANSPARENCY was viciously & crudely not allowed. Tractors blocked doors & windows were covered with thick cardboard so that observers could not see into the count rooms. BAD THINGS HAPPENED INSIDE. BIG CHANGES TOOK PLACE!" he said in a tweet.
Trump seems on the cusp of losing the historic presidential race with his Democratic rival Joe Biden leading him in several swing states including Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.
Four days after the November 3 presidential election, votes were still being counted in several key battleground states that will determine the outcome of the presidential race.
"This would ALSO change the Election result in numerous states, including Pennsylvania, which everyone thought was easily won on Election Night, only to see a massive lead disappear, without anyone being allowed to OBSERVE, for long intervals of time, what the happened," he said.
"Tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 P.M. On Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor-thin states. As a separate matter, hundreds of thousands of Votes were illegally not allowed to be OBSERVED...," Trump wrote.
Twitter quickly flagged the president's latest tweets, saying "some or all of the content shared in this tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process".
Although the president led in Pennsylvania on election night, his lead over Biden has been cut down and overturned following further counting of mail-in ballots.
As per the latest projections, Biden has 253 electoral college votes, and Trump trails behind with 213. A winner has to secure at least 270 electoral votes from the 538-member Electoral College.
"People were screaming STOP THE COUNT & WE DEMAND TRANSPARENCY (As Legal Observers were refused admittance to count rooms)!" Trump said in another tweet.
In a separate tweet, Trump claimed in all-caps: "I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!"
President Trump at a White House news conference on Friday accused the Democrats of massive ballot fraud and alleged that the election was being stolen. He did not offer any evidence to back his claim.
His campaign has filed multiple lawsuits in the States of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada and has demanded a recount of votes in Wisconsin.
The Biden campaign has denied the allegations.
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Delhi court sentences Haryana gangster Vikas Gulia, associate to life imprisonment
New Delhi (PTI): A Delhi court has sentenced Haryana gangster Vikas Gulia and his associate to life imprisonment under MCOCA provisions, but refused the death penalty saying the offences did not fall under the category of 'rarest of the rare cases'.
Additional Sessions Judge Vandana Jain sentenced Gulia and Dhirpal alias Kana to rigorous imprisonment for life under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
In an order dated December 13, the judge said, "Death sentence can only be awarded in 'rarest of the rare cases' wherein the murder is committed in an extremely inhumane, barbarous, grotesque or dastardly manner as to arouse umbrage of the community at large."
The judge said that on weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, it could be concluded that the present case did not fall under the category, and so, the death penalty could not be imposed upon the convicts.
"Thus, both the convicts are sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs 3 lakh each, for committing the offence under Section 3 of MCOCA," she said.
The public prosecutor, seeking the death penalty for both the accused, submitted that they were involved in several unlawful activities while they were on bail in other cases.
He argued that the accused had shown no respect for the law and acted without any fear of legal consequences, and therefore did not deserve any leniency from the court.
The court noted that both convicts were involved in offences of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, robbery, house trespass, and criminal intimidation. Besides, they had misused the liberty of interim bail granted to them by absconding.
It said, "The terror of the convicts was such that it created fear psychosis in the mind of the general public, and they lost complete faith in the law enforcement agencies and chose to accede to the illegal demands of convicts. Despite suffering losses, they could not gather the courage to depose against them."
The court noted that Gulia was involved in at least 18 criminal cases, while Dhirpal had links to 10 serious offences.
It underlined that MCOCA had been enacted "keeping in view the fact that organised crime had come up as a serious threat to society, as it knew no territorial boundaries and is fuelled by illegal wealth generated by committing the offence of extortion, contract killings, kidnapping for ransom, collection of protection money, murder, etc."
Both accused persons had been convicted on December 10 in a case registered at Najafgarh police station. The police filed a chargesheet under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) and 4 (punishment for possessing unaccountable wealth on behalf of member of organised crime syndicate) of MCOCA.
