Page 2 - Counting Act News Today

Donald trump tonight it. trump issued a statement claiming that the vice president had agreed that he could determine the outcome of the election. despite the fact that the vice president had consistently rejected that position. lets look at what the president said in his statement. >> quote, the new york times report regarding comments vice president pence supposedly made to me today is fake news. he never said that. the vice president and i are in total agreement that the vice president has th...

Presidents general counsel. >> did john eastman ever admit, as far as you know, in front of the president that his proposal would violate the electoral count act? >> i believe he did on the fourth. >> that was january 4th. two days before the attack on congress. a second point. please listen to testimony today about all of the ways that president trump attempted to pressure vice president pence, including donald trumps tweet at 2:24 pm. condemning vice president mike pence when president trump a...

His justification which we will learn more about in our next hearing was that a group of trump supporters in arizona and other swing states decided to proclaim themselves the true electors for the state. creating two sets of electors. the official electors selected by the state and a group of fake electors. this document was ordered to be produced to the select committee by a federal district court judge. as you will see on the screen shortly, judge david carter wrote quote, the draft memo pushe...

12th amendment. in order to construct for the country a process for the counting of the sacred process. for the counting of the electoral votes, from the states. thats neither our original constitution, nor even the 12th amendment, had done. the irony, if you will, is that from its founding until 1887, when congress passed the electoral count act, the nation

And so here you have an amendment that says nothing about objecting or rejecting, and yet we did have some recent practice of the happening within the terms of the electoral count act. so we started with that text. we were called in that discussion with the vice president, who said, i cannot wait to go to heaven and meet the founding fathers and tell them, they work that you did in putting together our constitution is a work of genius. thank you. it was divinely inspired. there is one sentence t...

And i will mutually understand that the underlying legal theory of -- presidential vice presidential authority, is what you have to have to get their. this new theory as i was pointing out to him, or the procedural theory, still violate several provisions of the electoral count act. as he acknowledged. and the only way that you could ever be able to ignore several provisions of statutory law, is if it was pretty clear that they were unconstitutional, and the only way they can be unconstitutional...

Been outlines as the plan for today is perfectly legal, i have professor eastman here with me to say a few words about that. hes one of the preeminent constitutional scholars in the united states. it is perfectly appropriate, given the questionable constitutionality of the election counting act of 1887. that the vice president can canceled it aside and he can do what a president called jefferson did when he was vice president. he can decide, he can decide on the validity of these crooked ballots...

>> vice president chief of staff mark short had an angry phone call with trump campaign senior advisor jason miller about the statement. here is what mr. short and mr. mueller told the committee about that call. >> tell me about the conversation you had with jason. it was brief. i was irritated and expressed displeasure that statement couldve gone out that was representative of the vice presidents key point without consultation. the statement says the vice president iron total agreement. and the...