Presidential Transition Live Updates: Lawmakers Unveil Stimulus Package

Attorney General William P. Barr said Tuesday that the Justice Department has not uncovered voting fraud at a scale that could have affected the results of the presidential election, reaffirming Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s win despite President Trump’s groundless claims that he was defrauded.

Mr. Barr’s comments, in an interview with The Associated Press, were a prominent repudiation of Mr. Trump’s baseless assertions and came days after the president implied that the Justice Department and the F.B.I. may have played a role in an election fraud.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Mr. Barr said.

Mr. Barr’s comments came as another Trump ally signaled he was ready to move on after a surreal month of lawsuits, conspiracy theories and denials by the president of a loss that has proved durable and decisive.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, who has refused to recognize Mr. Trump’s election loss, on Tuesday moved closer to overtly accepting the reality that Mr. Biden would be in the White House next year, while discussing the prospects for more pandemic stimulus in 2021.

“After the first of the year, there is likely to be a discussion about some additional package of some size next year, depending upon what the new administration wants to pursue,” Mr. McConnell said at a news conference.

Taken together, Mr. Barr’s direct declaration and Mr. McConnell’s indirect reference to Mr. Biden’s new administration represent a major, if not unexpected, blow to the president’s postelection effort to change the results from two men whom he has often relied on for political cover.

Moments after Mr. Barr’s comments were made public, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, emailed a statement on campaign letterhead, claiming — again without evidence — that he had found “ample” proof of national voter fraud sufficient to swing the election to Mr. Biden.

“With the greatest respect to the Attorney General, his opinion appears to be without any knowledge or investigation of the substantial irregularities and evidence of systemic fraud,” wrote Mr. Giuliani late Tuesday.

Mr. Barr was seen entering the White House grounds Tuesday afternoon. A department spokesman said he was there for previously scheduled appointments that did not include a meeting with the president.

Amid the fallout from Mr. Barr’s statements about the election, the Justice Department also announced that he had given extra protection to the federal prosecutor examining the origins of the investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Mr. Barr appointed the prosecutor, John H. Durham, as a special counsel, a move that makes it more difficult for the Biden administration to fire him.

Mr. Durham has been conducting the investigation for a year and a half, and Mr. Trump and his allies had been banking on him uncovering wrongdoing by Obama-era F.B.I. officials to help the president’s political fortunes in the lead up to last month’s election. But Mr. Durham has charged only one person, an F.B.I. lawyer who pleaded guilty to doctoring an email.

Gabriel Sterling, a high-ranking Georgia elections official, walked to a lectern in the State Capitol in Atlanta on Tuesday and angrily denounced the violent threats and harassment directed at people working on elections issues, urging President Trump to condemn it.

“It has to stop,” said Mr. Sterling, a Republican. “Mr. President, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you’re going to take a position of leadership, show some.”

Mr. Sterling, a wonkish former city councilman in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, has taken on a starring role as Georgia’s voting system implementation manager while the president continues to call the election “rigged” and urge for the results to be nullified.

“Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia,” Mr. Sterling said on Tuesday. “We’re investigating. There’s always a possibility, I get it, you have the right to go to the courts. What you don’t have is the ability to — and you need to step up and say this — is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”

Mr. Sterling’s boss, the Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, has come under fire from Trump…