Friday, January 1st, 2021
Last attempts to overturn election
Pence opposes Trump supporters
All attempts by Trump and his supporters to somehow change the result of the lost presidential election have failed. One of the last initiatives places its hope in the Vice President, who also chairs the Senate. But Mike Pence rejects the plan.
US Vice President and so far loyal supporter of President Donald Trump, Mike Pence, does not want to participate in giving Trump another term in office despite his electoral defeat. Pence called on a judge to dismiss several Republicans’ lawsuit, which was designed to allow him to ignore the multiple state election results and re-elect Trump as President in the Senate.
After more than 50 lost court cases, including those at the Supreme Court, supporters of Trump hope that Congress could disqualify several states in which Trump suspects large-scale electoral fraud in favor of Democrat Joe Biden in the official count of the votes of the electorate on January 6. A request by Republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives is considered to have no chance. Instead, some conservatives now want, through a lawsuit, formally directed against Pence, to get a judge to grant him, as chairman of the Senate, the sole right to decide on the validity of the electoral vote. There has never been a similar process in the USA. The vote count in Congress is considered a mere formality.
In a statement, the assistant attorney general, on Pence’s behalf, dismissed the lawsuit, which was filed with a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, as not legally tenable. He argued purely formally and did not go into the unproven election fraud allegations. Still, it is the first time that Pence has officially taken a stand against one of the controversial attempts to overturn the election result.
Other leading Republicans have also opposed attempts to challenge the election result in Congress. The Republican Senator Ben Sasse described the planned motion of several party colleagues to appeal against the election results at the congressional session as a “dangerous trick”. In a long post on Facebook, Sasse tore up the election fraud allegations of Trump and his supporters. There is no evidence of the allegations, stressed Sasse. “The President and his allies are playing with fire.” In internal talks he had heard from “not a single” Republican in Congress that there was any doubt about the election result.
Trump lost the election to his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in early November – by a clear margin. Trump has so far stubbornly refused to admit defeat. The Republican claims he was defeated by massive fraud. Neither Trump nor his lawyers have provided any substantive evidence to support these claims. More than 50 lawsuits from the Trump camp have so far been thrown out of the courts, including the US Supreme Court. The electorate from the states have confirmed Biden’s clear victory. On January 6, the House of Representatives and the Senate will meet to read the votes from the states and officially announce the election results. Then it is official who has won the election.