Pence resisting Trump's pressure
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence is resisting pressure from President Donald Trump and his allies to use his constitutional role overseeing the Electoral College count Wednesday to somehow alter its outcome at the last moment.
Pence has said little publicly about how he intends to conduct himself Wednesday. But he has told people in the West Wing privately that he views his role in the process as ceremonial, and that view has not changed, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Pence has been a loyal partner to Trump throughout their four years in office, and his role as president of the Senate this week pits his legal duties against his allegiance to Trump, who has challenged the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Republican and Democratic legal experts agree that Pence’s role at the Electoral College count is procedural, requiring the vice president to open state certifications of their election results.
But Trump and other Republicans are pushing state legislators to open formal fraud investigations in their states, hoping to provide Pence with a justification to assert that there must be a delay in certification of the election.
Trump won 232 Electoral College votes, losing to former Vice President Joe Biden, who won 306.
The chair of the Republican Party of Hawaii circulated a letter Monday, obtained by McClatchy, that called on Pence to “present for certification on January 6, 2021 the legitimate electors” representing only “legally cast votes.” She urged Trump supporters to call the White House and email the vice president with the same message.
That same day a group of lawyers sought to convince Trump and Pence that the vice president has the constitutional authority to intervene in the process.
“The Constitution seems to me to imply that (Pence) has merely a technical role to read the results and to announce that there have to be debates in the House and the Senate,” said Alan Dershowitz, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School.
Pence last week requested that a federal judge dismiss a lawsuit brought by Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert that sought to assert that the vice president has discretion over the Electoral College vote count.
Dershowitz said that Pence’s opposition to Gohmert’s legal effort signaled that he does not want to challenge his constitutional authority to intervene. “I don’t think he wants more power. What I think he wants is to be on the president’s side politically, but not on his side constitutionally and legally,” Dershowitz said.
