AP
Washington Hispanic:
President Donald Trump tightened the screws on his most loyal soldier Tuesday, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to use powers that he does not have to override the will of voters in a desperate and futile attempt to undo the victory of President-elect Joe Biden in the November elections.
Pence is in the most precarious position of his term as he prepares to preside over the count of Congress on Wednesday of the Electoral College votes, bearing witness to the formalization of Trump’s electoral defeat and yours.
House and Senate “Tellers” will record the electoral votes of each state. At the end of the ballot, sitting in the House of Representatives rostrum, Pence is tasked with announcing who has won the most votes for both President and Vice President.
A Despite the pro forma nature of Pence’s role, he is under intense pressure from the president and legions of supporters who want the vice president to use the moment to override the will of the voters in a handful of critical battlefield states.
“I hope Mike Pence is coming for us, I have to tell you,” Trump said at a rally Monday night in Georgia for candidates in two Senate second-round elections.
“Of course, if it doesn’t happen, I won’t like it so much,” added Trump, drawing laughter. He said Pence “was going to have a lot to say about it.
Trump continued to pile up, insisting on a statement late Tuesday, hours after a lunch with the vice president, that Pence had not informed him that he had no power to override the will of the voters. “You can decertify the results or send them back to the states for change and certification,” Trump said. “You can also decertify illegal and corrupt results and send them to the House of Representatives for the single vote for a state tabulation.”
Neither the Constitution nor the statute of Congress grant the vice president such powers. It is up to the House and Senate to voice objections, and state voters were chosen in accordance with state law, not fraudulently.
Trump and Pence discussed the proceedings during their weekly lunch in the West Wing on Tuesday, according to one person reported the conversation one-on-one and granted anonymity to discuss it. And the vice president has spent hours cuddling with the Senate staff and MP to prepare, including studying the Election Scrutiny Act of 1887, which governs procedures, and relevant legal opinions ahead of Wednesday’s joint session.
But Pence, whose office declined to discuss his plans, was not expected to comply with Trump’s request to overturn the voters, recognizing that he does not have such unilateral power.
People close to the vice president stressed his respect for the institutions and said they expected him to act in accordance with the law and the Constitution. Pence, an official said, could echo some of Trump’s complaints about the vote, even if he doesn’t interfere with the vote.
“I think he will be approached as constitutionalist, basically , and he’ll say, ‘What’s my role in the Constitution as president of the Senate?’ ”said David McIntosh, president of the conservative Growth Club and a friend of Pence. “What it will do is allow anyone who is going to move to oppose to be heard, but then abide by what the majority of the Senate does the result.”
By complying with one of With the few formal responsibilities of the vice presidency, Pence also runs the risk of compromising his own political future. Pence is looking at his own run for the White House in 2024, and is relying on his years of loyalty to Trump, arguably the best king in the GoP for years, to help him excel in what it’s expected to be a crowded field.
That means you should avoid angering Trump along with large portions of the Republican base, who have bought into the president’s unsupported claims of widespread electoral fraud and have been falsely led to believe that Pence has the power to reverse the result by rejecting the votes of states such as Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that passed from Trump in 2016 to Biden at 2020.
“Stop the robbery!” Georgia voters chanted Pence at a rally to Senate candidates at Rock Springs Church in Milner, Georgia on Monday.
“I know we all, we all have our doubts about the last election. And I want to assure you that I share the concerns of millions of Americans about voting irregularities, ”Pence told the crowd. «And I promise you come this Wednesday, we will have our day in Congress. We will listen to objections. We’ll listen to the evidence. ”
On Wednesday starting at 1 pm EST, Pence will chair a joint session of Congress. Its function is to open the certificates of the electoral votes of each state and present them to the designated «es tellers» of the House and Senate in alphabetical order. At the end of the count, it was up to Pence to announce who won.
In 2017, it was up to Biden in the tone of « It’s over ‘after the votes for Trump and Pence were tallied.
Allies underscore that their role is largely ministerial, and that electoral scrutiny could only be overturned by lawmakers, a virtual impossibility given that Democrats control the House. But Pence on Sunday held a two-hour meeting that included the Senate MP to review his role and responsibilities
And on Monday, Pence was in the Oval Office with Trump and senior advisers while the president continued looking for ways to annul the results of the elections. The scene appeared animated as the President, Pence, and their chiefs of staff met with attorney John Eastman and others.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been leading The president’s legal effort, said in a podcast interview that the team had been consulting with constitutional law professors and weighing Pence’s options. He said that Trump and Pence on Monday were “going through the whole investigation” and would probably wait until Tuesday to make a decision on how to proceed.
“The president will make this decision based on his judgment and in the advice he receives on what the Constitution requires, “Giuliani told conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Trump is scheduled to rally thousands of supporters at the Ellipse, just south of the White House on Wednesday morning, a few hours before the count. Pence was not expected to attend, according to a person familiar with the event.
Despite claims by Trump and his allies, there was no widespread fraud in the election. This has been confirmed by a number of election officials and by William Barr, who resigned as attorney general last month. Neither Trump nor any of the lawmakers who promise to oppose the scrutiny have presented credible evidence that would change the outcome.
However, more than 100 House Republicans and a dozen Senate Republicans have said they will challenge electoral votes from at least one of the battlefield states on Wednesday.
And on Monday, Republican parties in several states had Ronna McDaniel, who chairs the Republican National Committee, deliver letters to Pence encouraging him to turn down legally selected voters from Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
The efforts make it impossible for Pence to stay above the fray, as some allies had hoped.
Other allies have regretted that some Trump loyalists, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell, have tried to d and driving a wedge between Trump and his vice president during the last days of the administration.
That frustration appears to be shared by Pence, who recently complained to McIntosh about an ad by the anti-government group. -Trump The Lincoln Project who painted the vice president as distancing himself from Trump. So the Club for Growth cut its own ad, which aired in Palm Beach during Trump’s Florida vacation, trumpeting Pence’s loyalty to the president.
McIntosh said A Pence was annoyed by what he felt was a “cheap shot” by the group, adding that he hopes Pence comes out of this week’s drama with his reputation intact.
“In the At the moment, there is that uncomfortable feeling, but in the long run, people respect you if you do what you think is right and you explain why you do it, ”he said. This moment will pass. The decision will be made. »