Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called the president’s legal team a “national embarrassment”.
President Trump has refused to concede the election, making unsubstantiated claims of widespread electoral fraud.
Many Republicans have supported his legal efforts, although a small but growing number have broken ranks.
Voting in the US election ended on 3 November. Mr Biden is projected to beat President Trump by 306 votes to 232 in the US electoral college when it meets to formally confirm the winner on 14 December. This is far above the 270 votes he needs.
Mr Biden is set to become president at an inauguration ceremony on 20 January. He is expected to name his first cabinet appointments on Tuesday, with long-time foreign policy adviser Antony Blinken reportedly set to become his secretary of state.
What’s wrong with Trump’s legal efforts?
Speaking to ABC’s This Week programme on Sunday, Mr Christie, a former New Jersey governor, said: “Quite frankly, the conduct of the president’s legal team has been a national embarrassment.”
He said the Trump camp was often discussing election fraud “outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom they don’t plead fraud and they don’t argue fraud”.
“I have been a supporter of the president’s. I voted for him twice. But elections have consequences, and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn’t happen.”
Mr Christie was the first governor to endorse Mr Trump as a presidential candidate back in 2016. He also helped prepare the US president for his debates with Mr Biden earlier this year.
He singled out for criticism Sidney Powell, a lawyer who appeared with Mr Trump‘s legal team during a press conference on Thursday. She claimed, without providing evidence, that electronic voting systems switched millions of ballots to Mr Biden, and that he also won thanks to “communist money”.
But on Sunday the Trump campaign issued a statement distancing themselves from Ms Powell, saying she “is practising law on her own” and was “not a member of the Trump legal team”.
A tweet from President Trump earlier this month explicitly named her as part of the team.
On Sunday other Republicans also urged President Trump to concede.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan told CNN on Sunday that the Trump camp‘s continued efforts to overturn the election results were “beginning to look like we’re a banana republic”.
What has the Biden camp been up to?
Joe Biden has been pressing on with plans for office, despite President Trump‘s refusal to concede complicating the transition process.
Ron Klain, Mr Biden‘s choice as White House chief-of-staff, again urged the Trump administration to kick-start the handover.
“A record number of Americans rejected the Trump presidency, and since then Donald Trump‘s been rejecting democracy,” he told ABC News.
He also revealed that the Biden campaign was preparing for a “scaled-down” inauguration on 20 January due to the worsening coronavirus outbreak.
Source : BBC News
