Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates

A second lawyer who was helping lead President Donald Trump's effort to contest the outcome of the 2020 election has asked to step aside, according to a new federal court filing.

Republican attorney Linda A. Kerns submitted papers with the U.S. District Court Monday saying she had "reached a mutual agreement that Plaintiffs will be best served" if she withdrew.

She was joined in the motion by two other attorneys -- colleagues who only recently signed on to the case with her.

Kerns is a veteran of election law battles in Pennsylvania and has written publicly about her desire to see voter ID laws passed to prevent election fraud.

She had served as the primary attorney on the central Trump campaign lawsuit in Pennsylvania challenging the election's outcome. It is not clear why she has asked to step aside.

Lawyers from Ohio firm of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur recently asked to withdraw from the federal lawsuit the Trump campaign filed in Pennsylvania to challenge the election results there.

-ABC News' Alex Hosenball

While conducting its audit, elections officials in heavily Republican Floyd County discovered they inadvertently did not upload about 2,600 early voted ballots into its original results.

Statewide voting systems implementation manager Gabriel Sterling said that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger would like to see the county's elections chief clerk step down from his position "because this was too important of an issue to have allowed to happen this way."

Sterling, during a virtual press conference, described the mistake as "an amazing blunder."

"This is why you do the audits," Sterling said. "There's no issues with any of the equipment or anything -- they just didn't scan these ballots it looks like, or the card was not put through properly." 

"Obviously the secretary and our whole office is perturbed, to say the least, that this was allowed to happen in that county. It is the only county we've seen an issue like this so far," he added. "It's not an equipment issue. Again -- it's a person, not executing their job properly," he said.

An investigator has been dispatched to the county.

Sterling said these found ballots did change the results in Trump's favor by about 800 votes -- still nowhere near the approximately 14,000 votes the president needs to overtake Biden in Georgia.

"So far, from our checks with VotingWorks and our -- and the teams on the ground, nothing is making us see any substantive change in the outcome. It's verifying that we saw on election night," Sterling said. "The majority of the counties right now are finding zero deviations from the original number of ballots that they had into the system."

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan

Following news that a recount in Wisconsin would cost $7.9 million, the Trump campaign appears to be moving back from its previous, more-certain stance that they would be pursuing a recount in the state.

When asked on Monday if it still planned to pursue a recount in Wisconsin, the Trump campaign said in a statement to ABC News that they are leaving "all legal options open," but wouldn't say for certain that they'd be filing a recount in the state.

"The legal team continues to examine the issues with irregularities in Wisconsin and are leaving all legal options open, including a recount and an audit," Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis said in a statement to ABC News.

Ellis' comments appear to be a step back from previous statements made by the campaign on press calls.

On a press call last Thursday, for instance, Trump campaign general counsel Matt Morgan was far more clear that they planned to "avail ourselves" of the recount as soon as the state's counties were certified. 

-ABC News' Will Steakin and Cheyenne Haslett

Following his remarks on economic recovery, Biden took questions largely focused on his transition of power as Trump still refuses to recognize Biden as the president-elect.

Asked what’s the biggest threat to his stalled transition, Biden said the ability to coordinate on a pandemic plan as cases surge across the country. 

“More people may die if we don't coordinate,” Biden said. “If we have to wait until Jan. 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month and a half.”

Questioned by ABC News Chief Congressional Correspondent Mary Bruce what he plans to do about the Trump administration’s stone-walling, Biden said he will continue to engage with stakeholders across the spectrum but acknowledged that it would “make it a lot easier” if Trump would cooperate.

When pressed on his message to Republicans who are also refusing to recognize him as president-elect, Biden said he would still work with them but called it a “shame” if his team had to wait until Jan. 20 to access federally appropriated transition resources. 

“I will work with you. I understand a lot of your reluctance because of the way the president operates,” Biden said. “If it has to wait until Jan. 20 to actually become operational, that's a shame, but maybe -- maybe that's the only way to get it done.”

“As I said earlier -- and I probably shouldn't repeat it, but I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started,” Biden said about Trump's weekend tweets where he first seemed to acknowledge Biden won but then said he wouldn't concede.

Biden again urged Congress to pass the Heroes Act, the House-passed COVID-19 relief legislation that Senate GOP leadership has not brought up for a vote, saying the federal government has all the money and capacity to deliver more relief now.  

“The idea the president is still playing golf and not doing anything about it is beyond my comprehension,” Biden said. “You’d at least think he'd want to go off on a positive note.”