President Trump said Tuesday night that he and Vice President Mike Pence are “in total agreement” that Mr. Pence can decertify states’ electoral votes in the final counting that will begin in Congress on Wednesday.
In a statement released by his campaign, Mr. Trump refuted a New York Times report claiming that Mr. Pence told the president he doesn’t believe he has the authority to act unilaterally to block certification of a state’s Electoral College votes.
“He never said that,” Mr. Trump said. “The vice president and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act.”
The two men met earlier in the day at the White House for lunch. The president said Mr. Pence has several options for dealing with electoral votes from contested battleground states won by Mr. Biden where the president claims there were widespread illegalities in the election.
“He can decertify the results or send them back to the states for changes and certification,” Mr. Trump said. “He can also decertify the illegal and corrupt results and send them to the House of Representatives for the one-vote-for- one-state tabulation.”
Mr. Trump said the Nov. 3 election “was corrupt in contested states, and in particular, it was not in accordance with the Constitution, in that they made large- scale changes to election rules and regulations as dictated by local judges and politicians, not by state legislators. This means that it was illegal.”
Most constitutional law specialists say the vice president’s role in the vote-counting is limited to opening envelopes containing each state’s vote totals. Several House and Senate Republicans plan to object to Mr. Biden’s electoral votes from at least six swing states, which will prompt debate and voting by each chamber on whether to accept those votes.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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