Trump Was Right. Pence Could Have Rejected the Electors
Trump was right. Vice President Pence, on January 6, 2021, could have “ruled” against accepting the electors submitted by Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. Had that hypothetical happened, there would have been a messy overruling of Pence’s decision and eventually the Electoral College results would have been certified. But not without a lot more sound and fury than what has by now transpired. Yes, it could have been worse. Much worse.
However, Vice President Pence dutifully acted out his prescribed role and did not contribute any additional source of conflict and faux “objection” to our recent presidential election. As a result, Vice President Pence failed in the mission he was assigned by President Trump, namely to try to undermine the legitimacy of the Biden-Harris Electoral College victory.
Nearly the entire legal and political community expressed sympathy for the plight in which Vice President Pence found himself. His vengeful boss expected him to gum up the works as Congress got together to certify the Electoral College. He was supposed to help Trump’s congressional elves in the Senate and House of Representatives spread the fiction that there were “concerns” and “questions” about the legitimacy of the election.
President Trump hasn’t been disciplined for anything he’s done. We’re all familiar with the litany of his immoral and deplorable misconduct. But aside from the length of Trump’s misdeeds and crimes, what is even more important is that he’s rarely, if ever, held to account for his bad conduct. Presumably V.P. Pence was supposed to operate with that impunity in mind.
So when President Trump asked his Vice President to reject the electors from six key states, Trump was operating on the basis of experience. What people know, but too often forget, is that Donald J. Trump thinks that breaking the rules is fine if no one does anything to stop or punish him. So, of course, reject the Electoral College results, go ahead! What have you got to lose?
As Trump sees it, engaging in more outrage only makes his base-fans love him all the more for “owning the libs.” For the Trump base, irritating liberals, progressives, and Democrats is next to godliness. By now it’s likely that the Trump base would rather burn down their own homes and strangle the family puppy before they would give any aid or comfort to Trump’s opponents.
Vice President Pence, however, didn’t gum up the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote. The criminal, Trump-fomented riot and break-in at the Capitol delayed things for some hours, but didn’t stop V.P. Pence or Congress from doing their constitutionally prescribed job.
Yet, on a day when some as-yet-unbroken, critical norms were at stake, when perhaps the Republic was on the line, Vice President Pence defied his mob boss in the White House and did the right thing. That should not be forgotten.
But as the Trump Presidency melts away, let’s also not forget that Vice President Pence has also been a loyal Trump servant nearly all the time. Despite his professed Christian piety, V.P. Pence has lied for his boss. He has participated in providing cover for a wide range of Trump outrages. He has also participated in pushing doubts about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
At a January 4 Georgia rally, just two days before the January 6 tragedy at the Capitol, on behalf of the now defeated Republican candidates for Senate, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, V.P. Pence said, “We’ve all got our doubts about the last election. I share the concerns of millions of Americans about voting irregularities.” To be clear, then, prior to his presiding over the congressional certification of the Electoral College, V.P. Pence contributed to spreading the false claim that there was some serious basis for questioning the legitimacy of the Biden-Harris election victory. Nothing should obscure that fact.
