Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 12:27 pm
Vice President Mike Pence refused to overturn the election, and shortly thereafter, Trump‘s fans rioted on the Capitol.
Here is the page from Pence’s letter to Congress as provided to PoliticusUSA by the White House:
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The relevant quote from Pence’s letter:
🚨🆕From the outgoing VP: “”It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution contains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.†https://t.co/QvKNQCG783
— Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) January 6, 2021
It has been known for more than 24 hours that Pence was not about to go along with Donald Trump’s coup to cause a constitutional crisis. Trump claimed to his supporters that Pence had the authority to do overturn the election, and threatened that Pence needed to “do the right thing.”
Trump lied to his supporters. Pence was never going to overturn the election, but Trump set Pence up to take the fall and be blamed by his supporters for not coming through for Trump.
The end result of Trump’s lies which have gone on for weeks about Pence overturning the election is that Trump stoked the flames for this violence.
The rioters can’t stop Joe Biden from becoming president, and it isn’t a coincidence that things took a turn for the worse after Mike Pence defied Trump and refused to overturn the election.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
