US: after years of loyalty to Donald Trump, Mike Pence faces a crucial transition journey
The Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, will have to choose between respecting the Constitution or following the wishes of Donald Trump. It is that the Republican magnate sees in his vice president and close friend the possibility of avoiding the final certification of the election that would displace them from the command of the White House.
"If Vice President Mike Pence supports us, we will win the presidency," the outgoing president posted on his Twitter account. Trump has repeatedly refused to acknowledge his defeat, and pressuring Pence appears to be his last chance to reverse Joe Biden's victory and stay in power for four more years.
But the vice president's power to reverse the electoral results is not in the Constitution. His role is simply to oversee the final confirmation of the vote. Open the electoral votes certificates, deliver them to the "scrutineers" who tabulate them and finally declare the winner. Ultimately, it is not in his power to make Trump's wishes come true.
The joint session of Congress, charged with ratifying the presidential elections, will take place today on Capitol Hill. Legislators must count and confirm the Electoral College votes sent by all 50 states. US electoral law determines that Pence should preside over the session.
The president's mistaken belief that Pence can overturn the results declaring Biden the 45th president of the United States is being fueled by agitators who increase Trump's disinformation, according to several people in contact with the president and the White House. The group includes Rudolph Giuliani, the president's personal attorney; Peter Navarro, one of the main commercial advisers of the White House; and Sidney Powell, a lawyer and Trump ally.
Former appeals court judge Michael Luttig, close to Trump and Pence advisers, rebutted the president's claims on Twitter Tuesday. He expressed that under the Constitution, the power and responsibility of the vice president is solely to count the votes of the Electoral College. "The Constitution does not attribute to the vice president the power to alter in any way the votes cast, either by rejecting any of them or in any other way," he said.
Last month, a lawsuit supported by Republican MPs tried to give Pence authority to reject electoral votes, but the president opposed that effort, and a federal judge dismissed the action.
Trump has been prodding those close to him in Congress to try to reverse the results. In addition, several Republican senators and deputies indicated that they will oppose the certification of votes in some key states won by Biden, although this could lead to a debate and the need to open procedures that would extend the session.
In Georgia on Monday, the president emphasized his wishes that Pence help him. He said he is a "wonderful guy!"
Pence will have to choose between loyalty to his president or to the Constitution he swore in. If he followed the stipulations, he would end up announcing his own defeat, just as Al Gore did in 2000 and Walter Mondale (Jimmy Carter's former vice president) 19 years earlier.
