Rawstory is reporting that Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC and Michael Schmitt of the New York Times reported on revelations in Bob Woodward’s latest book “Peril,” which includes over 200 interviews conducted during Donald Trump’s final days in office.
Among the items mentioned was that Vice President Mike Pence was under intense pressure from Trump and his allies to halt the certification of the 2020 election at the joint session on January 6. He asked former Vice President Dan Quayle for advice on Trump’s demand to refuse to certify the election, wondering if he could actually do so.
Quayle reportedly said, “absolutely not. You cannot do anything. You have to follow this.”
“And Pence is saying, well, is there any way that I could delay it?” said Schmitt.
“I do know the position you’re in,” Quayle said. “I also know what the law is. You listen to the parliamentarian. That’s all you do. You have no power.”
“Then Pence says look, you know, he said there are these problems with voter questions in Arizona and Quayle says hey, I’m in Arizona. No problems with the election results here. It just shows you that Pence was either struggling deeply to deal with the pressure he was facing from Trump or he was more open to this or whatever it was, but it is a very, very stark picture of these days and what Mike Pence was under,” Schmitt continued.
Mitchell was taken aback by the revelation that Dan Quayle was responsible for ensuring the election was certified, given that he is widely ridiculed for his lack of intelligence.
“Wow,” said Mitchell, “Dan Quayle comes to the rescue of the republic.”
In early January, before the Capitol insurrection, Vice President Pence asked a judge to reject a lawsuit that was aimed to broaden his power to use a congressional ceremony to overturn the presidential election, arguing that he is not the correct person to sue over the issue.
This issue at hand is regarding the Electoral Count Act; a 1887 law that has governed how Congress certifies presidential elections.
The Act aims to minimize Congressional involvement in election disputes, instead placing the primary responsibility to resolve disputes upon the states, with procedures and a time schedule.
The lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-TX, and a number of Republicans in Arizona, claimed this law is unconstitutional.
Gohmert’s lawsuit asked the judge to declare that Pence “must ignore and may not rely on any provisions of the Electoral Count Act that would limit his exclusive authority and his sole discretion to determine the count.”
Ultimately, they wanted a federal judge to take an unprecedented move of officially declaring that Pence had the right, on his own, to decide that the electoral college votes cast earlier this month for Biden are invalid.
Instead they want to recognize self-appointed Trump electors who gathered in several state capitals to challenge the results.
This law has been accepted by both parties for more than 130 years. It establishes the very process in which the voters the President of the United States.
Though legal experts have indicated that its vague and could be better stated, University of California election law scholar Rick Hasen wrote on his popular Election Law Blog, “No, this won’t work.”
Federal District Court Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle, a Trump appointee who took the bench in 2018, has the case before him.
Meanwhile, Republicans continued to maneuver there path through this troublesome time, as they redefined their rolls.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-NE, called the effort to use the Congressional process to reverse Biden’s electoral college victory a “dangerous ploy,”
“All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won’t change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party,” Sasse wrote on Facebook late Wednesday. “We ought to be better than that.”
Returning from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump insisted that this unprecedented move offers a last-ditch way to reverse the election results and is urged Republicans to join the objection.
Trump released, upon his return, a four minute video exalting his accomplishments, not mentioning his loss in the elections.
