Dem Impeachment Managers Praise Mike Pence

https://www.aol.com/news/democratic-impeachment-manager-lavishes-praise-210057735.html ^ | 2-10-2021 | David Knowles

[enumerated]

“Oh, please. If Pence decides to run for President in ‘24, they’ll forget all about what a hero he was and rip into him like piranha into a cow.“

So true. Except they won’t ever get the chance. He will get no love from Republican voters in the primaries - he will fold like a cheap JEB¡

[Lockbox]

Proof he was helping the Deep State and thanks for the good job controlling Trump. All is right with the world Mike.....

[The Pack Knight]

Or, more likely, Gore would have refused to count Florida’s votes in 2000 and declared himself President-elect. Instead, like Biden and Pence after him, he did his job under the Constitution and federal law, shut down invalid objections from his own party, and declared his opponent the winner when the votes were counted.

[Ambrosia]

We watched Pence take the coin, and do the handshake...yes, it makes sense the left would praise the TRAITOR, CAUSE they are traitors. Sadly, Pence was great disappointment for many.

[StAnDeliver]

LOL, noob. Here you all are having been taken in by this lame MSM wannabe at Yahoo.

[Dottiesmom]

I covered his name on my Trump sign also!!!! And wrote 2024!

[StAnDeliver]

I've heard this tired, fatuous argument before: "And all Pence had to do was not knowingly certify fraudulent electors."

Where were the alternate slates of Electors with the imprimatur of both that state's legislature and signed off by that state's Governor?

And even if Pence had had that, the House and the Senate must both vote in the majority to throw out the original Electors of any challenged state's slate.

The fact that 1 Congressman and 1 Senator, can object to every electoral slate (50 states + DC) is Constitutionally not enough to actually disqualify that state's slate. The Vice President must have both the House & Senate majority votes.

So anyone who 'thinks' U.S.C. 12 permitted the VP to act extra-constitutionally is talking out of their ass.

As it was, Pence approved the 1+1 Objection to the AZ elector slate just before everyone was moved down to the subway, and he approved the 1+1 Objection to the PA elector slate after they returned, rejecting enormous pressure to simply ignore the PA challenge after the protestor tours of the Capitol went home.

Any Freeper who continues to unwittingly (truely, without wit) complain about the absence of any enabling Constitutional language that would have permitted Pence to act in your prescribed manner -- what each of you really wanted Pence to do was "Living Document" errant libtard constructionalism, and you know it.

[DAVEY CROCKETT]

Pence your 15 minutes are almost over and both sides will hate you tomorrow congratulations!

[Cboldt]

-- I never liked Pence's mannerisms. --

My opinion of him is that he's a phony. His choice of words and speaking style come off as rehearsed. Not that he is literally rehearsed, just always "too careful."

[Georgia Girl 2]

If you didn’t know Pence was dirty before that pretty much clinches it.

[dsc]

“The VP isn’t “granted” any authority to certify anything. For one thing, the January 6th certification vote was held under the provisions of a 19th-century statute that is of dubious constitutional standing and may not stand up to a legal challenge anyway.”

Dubious? May not? That is the standard we use to elect the president? I wasn’t able to find that “19th-century statute.” Perhaps you would be good enough to pass along a citation.

The Constitution does contain this: “The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” The President of the senate is the Vice President.

Now, if you are trying to tell me that the VP can do absolutely nothing, even if he is cognizant of serious felonies in the compilation and presentation of those certificates, then you shouldn’t be slinging terms like “delusional” around.

An honest man could have and should have brought those proceedings to a screeching halt. Pence did not, and is therefore an accessory to the worst crime in the history of the United States.

You misrepresent his power to accuse the guilty as “unilateral authority to make decisions on his own.” In fact, any citizen of the United States may report a crime of which he is aware. You say, “Any challenge to the electoral votes of any state would be subject to a vote of both houses of Congress.” Okay, but the problem is that no one made such a challenge, so no investigation was held, and no vote was taken. Pence could have initiated that process with nothing more than a public accusation.

“If you really think the founders of this country ever would have given the sitting Vice President the unilateral authority to determine the outcome of a presidential election”

Why do you keep harping on that? No one has suggested any such thing. A hearty “J’accuse” does not constitute determining the outcome of a presidential election. It constitutes an allegation that crimes have been committed, and an assertion that no votes can be accepted prior to a proper investigation.

Pence should have said, “These votes were falsified, and the count shall not proceed until a proper investigation is complete. The only “unilateral” decision he would have been making is that duly constituted authority (other than himself) should perform a strict inspection.

[The Pack Knight]

To grant someone the authority to certify something necessarily implies that they also have the authority to refuse to certify it.

Where do you find a grant of authority to the Vice President to certify electoral votes or anything else? It certainly isn't in the Constitution.

The Twelfth Amendment, like unamended Article II before it, provides that "The Electors . . . shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for . . . which lists they shall sign and certify." It then provides that the "President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all of the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."

The votes are certified by the electors themselves, not the Vice President. The Constitution obligates the Vice President only to "open" the certificates that were certified and transmitted to him by the electors.

The Constitution doesn't even expressly give the Vice President the power to count the votes. Also, by using the word "shall," the Constitution does not grant the Vice President the discretion not to open the certificates.

The Constitution does not provide further detail because what more detail could be needed? The states decide who the electors are, and the electors decide who they vote for, so what is there for the Vice President or Congress but to count the electors' votes?

But the Founders knew they could not anticipate every contingency, which is why the Constitution grants Congress the power to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." After the debacle of 1876 demonstrated the necessity for a procedure to resolve such extraordinary disputes as competing slates of electors, Congress exercised its power under the Necessary and Proper Clause in enacting the Electoral Count Act. Pence followed the procedure set forth in the Electoral Count Act to the letter on January 6.

This idea that the Vice President has any power to determine what votes to count is a pure fabrication that has no basis in the Constitution. Anyone who has told you he has this power is either ignorant or deliberately misleading you. Pence followed the Constitution and the law, even when the President and numerous ignorant or dishonest people from his own party urged him to ignore the Constitution and the law. That's courage, not cowardice.

[BEJ]

Even if what you say is true, Pence should have thrown it back and let it be decided afterward if it was Constitutional or not. There is and continues to be a lot of debate on this issue. (Fine if you say it’s unconstitutional, but lets not prejudge without hearing all the arguments that would have been said about it)

Further, it would be politically prudent and MORAL considering all the fraud involved in the election. If you just go along as Pence had done, you are (maybe unwittingly) stamping tacit approval of fraud. And in that respect you are breaking the Spirit of the Constitution. It’s not a buffet where you chose this part of the Constitution because it suits your tastes and ignore the rest: e.g., letting the state election officials rather than judges and governors decide the conditions of the electors.

The Constitution means nothing and will continue to mean nothing if people get away with fraud and are ignoring it. So the first thing to address is the fraud. If people are using fraud to get around the Constitution they are making a mockery of it. Therefore, Pence should not have gone along. He should have objected to the fraud — sending back the votes — before legalizing something that is obtained by fraud and is making a mockery of the Constitution. Pence’s act basically continues to makes a mockery of the Constitution — maybe not in the letter of the law (we don’t know yet) but definitely in the Spirit.

[xp38]

To quote the grail knight.....Pence chose poorly

[The Pack Knight]

Dubious? May not? That is the standard we use to elect the president? I wasn’t able to find that “19th-century statute.” Perhaps you would be good enough to pass along a citation.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887. Pub. L. 49–90, 24 Stat. 373. Currently codified as 3 U.S.C § 1 through 21.

[who knows what evil?]

Looks like Pence was the ‘skunk in the woodpile’ all along.

[dsc]

“what each of you really wanted Pence to do was “Living Document” errant libtard constructionalism, and you know it.”

Not at all. I wanted Pence to say that he was looking at a bunch of serious crimes, and the United States doesn’t elect its president on the basis of crimes.

I wanted him to say that there will be no counting of votes until these crimes are investigated, and it is made clear what votes may legitimately be counted.

If you’re trying to tell me that the likes of George Washington and Light-horse Harry Lee would have forbidden the President of the Senate from speaking out against crimes discovered before or during the counting, well, pull the other one.

[dsc]

Thank you.

[dsc]

“The Constitution means nothing and will continue to mean nothing if people get away with fraud and are ignoring it. So the first thing to address is the fraud. If people are using fraud to get around the Constitution they are making a mockery of it. Therefore, Pence should not have gone along. He should have objected to the fraud — sending back the votes — before legalizing something that is obtained by fraud and is making a mockery of the Constitution. Pence’s act basically continues to makes a mockery of the Constitution — maybe not in the letter of the law (we don’t know yet) but definitely in the Spirit.”

Spot on.

[Alberta's Child]

I'm referring to the Electoral Count Act of 1887. That's the Federal statute that governs the whole process of "objecting" to electoral votes in Congress.

Now, if you are trying to tell me that the VP can do absolutely nothing, even if he is cognizant of serious felonies in the compilation and presentation of those certificates, then you shouldn’t be slinging terms like "delusional" around.

He's not "cognizant" of any such things. The Electoral College vote of December 14th had already taken place, and the sealed envelopes (the "certificates" referenced in the Constitution) were in the hands of VP Pence. If there were any "serious felonies in the compilation and presentation" of those certificates, then the proper venue for addressing those irregularities was in the states that sent them.

This was the whole point of Sen. Cotton's formal letter explaining why he would not vote to support any objections over the electoral votes from other states.

If there were "serious felonies in the compilation and presentation" of certified electoral votes from Pennsylvania (for example), then there is a whole laundry list of people in official capacities to formally represent the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in rendering an objection to those electoral votes. They include:

1. The governor
2. The Secretary of State
3. The legislature (individually as the PA House and PA Senate, or jointly)
4. A state court in Pennsylvania
5. One or both of the U.S. Senators who represent Pennsylvania in Washington

That list could probably be longer. Sen. Cotton's point was that none of these individuals or governing bodies filed any objection to PA's electoral votes. Cotton knew damn well that if a Senator from Arkansas can contest the electoral votes from another state in the absence of any formal objection from that state, then presidential elections are meaningless because the country would face the prospect of having Democrats from New York and California objecting to electoral votes from states like Wyoming and Oklahoma that Republicans win by huge margins.