Pence understood the level of corruption that it took place to displace Trump electorally. Rather than taking the courageous route, he bowed to the pressure of the Congressswamp. Maybe traitor is a tad tough as a descrpiton. Would the term "Complicit Coward" be more apt?
This has been argued exhaustively here more than once. Pence fulfilled all of his Constitutional obligations during the January 6 joint session, and he had no authority to do anything more than what he did. I have repeatedly posted multiple contemporaneous reports that all documented objections were fully debated, and no one has cited a single line of statutory or Constitutional authority for state legislators to recall certified EVs or for the President of the Senate unilaterally to qualify state-certified EVs.
As President of the Senate the only thing the VP certifies is arithmetic, not the legitimacy of state-certified EVs. Each state legislature is completely sovereign over its EVs and once they are certified the game is over, whether or not each state played by the rules. The steal was complete on December 8 2020, when the state EVs passed the "safe harbor" deadline.
There are plenty of people to blame for it, and Rs can be blamed for not taking it seriously and not fighting it hard enough; Pence comes in for blame here. But on January 6 it was too late and he had no options. To argue otherwise empowers every D VP until the end of the republic to game the Joint Session EV count by sending certified R EVs back to their states, and we both know that's exactly what the Ds will do if they have the chance.
Pence is neither a coward nor a traitor; he is delusional, and he has not learned the critical lesson of the Trump candidacy and administration - the R rank and file is no longer interested in nice guys.
