January 31, 2022

Trump Says Pence Should Have “Overturned the Election”

It was perhaps his most explicit admission yet that he had wanted his vice president to throw out legitimate electoral votes.

Donald Trump holds the Save America rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch in Florence, Arizona.Christopher Brown/ZUMA

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Donald Trump had a busy weekend. At a rally on Saturday, he declared he might pardon the January 6 insurrections because they have been treated “so unfairly.” On Sunday, a day later, he issued a public statement suggesting that former Vice President Mike Pence should have “overturned” the election during the electoral vote counting ceremony.

The latter statement was perhaps Trump’s most explicit admission so far that he had attempted to pressure Pence to throw out legitimately cast votes on the false pretext that massive voter fraud had swung the election to Joe Biden. In his statement, Trump attacked a bipartisan effort to reform the Electoral Count Act, the vague law governing the the counting of electoral votes. Trump and his associates had sought to exploit ambiguities in the act to seize power. 

“If the Vice President (Mike Pence) had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?” Trump wrote. “Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”

Trump’s statements echoed a strategy outlined in a widely ridiculed legal memo written by conservative lawyer John Eastman, which argued that Pence had the authority to toss out legitimate electoral votes and decide the election in his running mate’s favor. During discussions with Pence and Eastman in the oval office, Trump had reportedly urged his running mate to “listen to John.” Pence concluded that he did not have the authority to do so, and on the day of the electoral vote count, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol—some chanting “hang Mike Pence.” 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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