Trump planning '30-day war' as he launches blitz of lawsuits to fight election result

Donald Trump is reportedly planning a 30-day legal war as he launches multiple lawsuits and lines up several rallies to bolster his unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud. The US President has refused to accept defeat despite rival Joe Biden having accumulated 74 million votes - the most in the history of American elections.

But the Republican leader claims he has obituaries of dead people who voted for the Democrat, while his lawyers have filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania, hoping to get 600,000 votes thrown out.

The key Rust Belt state carries 20 crucial electoral college points, which Trump previously won by 0.72 per cent of the vote against Hilary Clinton in 2016.

His legal team is lining up a wave of further lawsuits in as many as 10 states, in an effort to prove the election was rigged against the billionaire businessman, it has been reported.

Trump is also said to be putting together a "campaign-style media operation" to promote his allegations with ex-TV reporter Tim Murtaugh as a spearhead, according to Axois.

Scores of campaign staff are being shifted into states where challenges are being made. 

Trump's family have largely joined his side in the effort to overturn the result which saw the President become just the fourth in US history to be ousted after only one term.

The First Lady is yet to call Biden’s wife Dr Jill Biden to congratulate the victory, as is tradition, and tweeted on Sunday that the American people "deserve fair elections".

"Every legal - not illegal - vote should be counted. We must protect our democracy with complete transparency," she added.

While Trump's oldest sons Don Jr and Eric have also taken to Twitter, mostly retweeting conspiracy theories to support the idea the election was stolen.

However, son-in-law Jared Kushner, husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka, is said to have attempted to persuade the President to concede defeat.

Meanwhile, fellow Republicans Mitt Romney - who lost out to Barack Obama in 2012 - and George Bush, who served from 2000 to 2008, have already congratulated Biden.

The Democrat is currently ahead of Trump by 43,000 votes in Pennsylvania, 148,000 votes in Michigan, 34,000 votes in Nevada, and 13,000 votes in Arizona, where ballots are still being counted nearly a week after polls closed.

In Wisconsin, the former Vice President is up by 20,000 votes and just 10,000 in Georgia, where a re-count would likely need to be called.

North Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has claimed the Trump camp has identified at least 15 votes sent in using the names of dead people in Pennsylvania. While Texas Senator Ted Cruz insists there were software glitches in Michigan.

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump is "100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities", pointing to how many Democrats have spent four years disputing the 2016 result.

It comes as US Attorney General William Barr authorised federal prosecutors to pursue "substantial allegations" of vote count irregularities. However, he made it clear that they should not chase "fanciful or far-fetched" claims.

On Election Day Trump's legal bids to stop counting votes in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania were thrown out, while a judge in Philadelphia ruled late ballots in the city would be counted separately.

However, the Trump camp would need to see a substantial amount of state counts overturned to have any chance of victory with Biden so far ahead.

And they are yet to produce any proof of electoral fraud, despite aides claiming they have "specific pieces of evidence".