Whether President Trump can declare martial law and re-run the election

There was a strenuous debate in the White House on Friday after President Trump apparently discussed declaring martial law to rerun the election. He also mulled appointing conspiracy theory propagator Sydney Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud, and discussed issuing an executive order to seize voting machines for inspection.

According to the New York Times, the meeting devolved into a shouting match as most White House advisors pushed back on these extreme ideas. Even outgoing Attorney General William Barr rejected the idea of a special counsel investigation into voter fraud today, saying he sees no need. Trump dismissed the report as fake news on Twitter, but it’s raising new alarms about the lengths he’ll go to stay in office.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices last week decided to hold off on deciding whether the Trump administration can exclude undocumented immigrants from the Census counts used to decide how many House districts a state gets.

This weekend, LA County Public Health officials cleared the way for churches to hold in-person indoor services during Christmas, lifting a ban on religious gatherings. There are still some rules such as wearing masks and keeping six feet away from others, but the county said they’re doing it to align with a recent Supreme Court ruling.