Trump lawyer suggests Pence could defer certifying election, send requests to state legislatures
Jenna Ellis suggests the vice president could seek clarity from legislators in states where election results are being disputed.
By John Solomon
Updated: January 4, 2021 - 7:15pm
One of President Trump's campaign attorneys suggested Monday that Vice President Mike Pence delay certifying the elections results for Joe Biden when Congress convenes Wednesday and instead ask legislatures in the six states where results have been contested to clarify which candidate's slate of electors should be approved.
Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign, floated the idea Monday afternoon during an appearance on the Just the News television show The Water Cooler with David Brody.
"What Mike Pence could do, and what he should do, in fact, is to direct a question back to the state legislatures when there are two competing slates of delegates from these six states, he can ask that question to the states and say, 'well, state legislators, you know, I have an oath to the Constitution to uphold the Constitution as written in Article II Section 1.2 which says the state legislatures direct the manner in which electoral delegates are selected. So you tell me which of these two slates was selected in the manner that your state general assembly has designated,'" Ellis said.
"And that's a fair question. That's not exercising discretion. That's not setting up any sort of bad precedent. That's actually returning the authority to the constitutionally vested entity and just simply directing that question I think would then require a response from these very timid, to put it lightly, state legislators that haven't been willing to act, and it would in fact then give a very clean outcome to this election," she added.
The six states she cited are Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. In all six states, the governments have declared Biden the winner and sent electors to Congress supporting the Democrat. But Trump supporters and some legislators in each of those states have said they don't trust the results because of irregularities and changes to election processes that weren't approved by the Legislatures. Courts have steadfastly refused to intervene despite numerous lawsuits challenging the results.
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https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/trump-lawyer-suggests-pence-could-defer-certifying-election-send-requests