Mike Pence has sent a letter to the US Congress confirming he will not listen to Donald Trump’s pleas to overturn Joe Biden’s win at a certification ceremony on Wednesday (Picture: Getty)
Mike Pence has officially confirmed his plans to defy Donald Trump by certifying Joe Biden’s election win. The Vice President of the United States sent a letter to members of the US Congress saying it would be ‘antithetical’ to the ‘design’ of the US Constitution for him to overturn Biden’s win.
Pence’s letter continued: ‘As a student of history who loves the Constitution and reveres its Framers, I do not believe the Founders of our country intended to invest the Vice President with the unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the Joint Session of Congress, and no Vice President in American history has ever asserted such authority.’
Pence went on to explain how he would behave in the same way as his predecessors, who ‘uniformly followed the Electoral County Act, conducting the proceedings in an orderly manner even where the count results in the defeat of their party or their own candidacy.’
The vice president spoke out as President Trump addressed supporters at a Washington DC rally aimed at protesting the certification. Trump personally implored Pence to throw out Biden’s victory, saying: ‘If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.’
Pence is now said to have braced himself for a personal attack from President Trump for defying his demands.
The certification ceremony has begun, and is set to be disrupted by Trump supporting congressmen and women objecting to Biden’s win. It is a ceremonial formality which sees representatives and senators from both houses of Congress oversee the count of Electoral College votes from individual states.
The Vice President serves only to count the votes, and confirm the result, which saw Joe Biden win 306 votes, and Donald Trump on 232.
Wednesday’s anticipated objections will lead to a debate and vote on whether to certify Biden, which the President-elect is widely expected to win.
Police hold back Trump supporters at the US Capitol building on Wednesday, shortly before fights broke out (Picture: Reuters)
Many Republicans are likely to side with their Democrat colleagues to back Biden, with only a minority supporting President Trump’s as-yet unproven claims of electoral fraud.
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