Former President Donald Trump late Friday issued a statement in response to former Vice President Mike Pence who, earlier in the day, disagreed with Trump about his role in the electoral vote certification process on Jan. 6.
At a speech to the conservative Federalist Society in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Pence said that the former president was “wrong,” after Trump said on Jan. 30 that Pence “did have the right to change the outcome” of the election.
Pence, as vice president, served as the president of the Senate and presided over the joint session of Congress to count Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021—the final step in the Electoral College system to certifying a president-elect.
“Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power; he could have overturned the Election!” the 45th U.S. president said.
Pence on Friday told the conservative legal group at the event in Orlando: “There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, I possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes. And I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election.’
“President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election,” said the former vice president. “The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. Frankly, there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
He continued, “Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”
“Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything with respect to the Electoral Vote Count, other than being an automatic conveyor belt ... to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible,” Trump said.
“Well, the Vice President’s position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities exist. That’s why the Democrats and RINOs are working feverishly together to change the very law that Mike Pence and his unwitting advisors used on January 6 to say he had no choice.
“The reason they want it changed is because they now say they don’t want the Vice President to have the right to ensure an honest vote,” Trump continued. “In other words, I was right and everyone knows it.
“If there is fraud or large scale irregularities, it would have been appropriate to send those votes back to the legislatures to figure it out. The Dems and RINOs want to take that right away. A great opportunity lost, but not forever, in the meantime our Country is going to hell!”
Collins told reporters at the Capitol that Trump’s repeated assertions that Pence could have altered the outcome of the election “underscored the need for us to revise the Electoral Count Act, because they demonstrated the confusion in the law and the fact that it is ambiguous.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Feb. 1 he is open to the effort, and said the Electoral Count Act “is flawed and it needs to be fixed.”
At the time, Pence’s office didn’t return an inquiry from The Epoch Times on why he didn’t acknowledge alternate slates.
“After a careful study of our Constitution, our laws, and our history, I believe neither view is correct.”
In the afternoon of Jan. 6, a group of rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol building while lawmakers were debating whether to reject votes for Arizona. It remains unclear exactly what group or groups were behind the breach.
The incident, around 2:15 p.m., forced both congressional chambers to temporarily go into recess, and lawmakers had to shelter in place. The session was delayed for several hours before congress resumed the electoral vote count process around 8 p.m.
