Vice President Pence on Thursday asked a federal judge for a bid from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and other Republicans to expand Pence’s powers in a way that would allow him to win the election victory. President Joe Biden.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, aims to expand Pence’s role in an upcoming Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to count state electoral votes and round out Biden’s victory over President Trump.
But in a Thursday briefing to Texas-based US District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump-appointed person, Pence said he was not a true defendant in the lawsuit.
“A lawsuit to find that the vice president has discretion over the count, filed against the vice president, is an ongoing legal contradiction,” wrote a Justice Department attorney representing Pence in the filing.
The role of the vice president in chairing the January 6 meeting is typically a largely ceremonial role governed by an 1887 federal law known as the Electoral Count Act.
But the Republican lawsuit seeks to invalidate the law as an unconstitutional restriction on the vice president’s authority to choose between competing claims of victory when state-level election results are challenged.
Republicans in several major battlefield states have contested Biden’s victory and offered alternative “slates” of pro-Trump voters to count on Jan. 6, but experts say these efforts have no legal weight.
The lawsuit against the vice president is now coming under increasing pressure from supporters of the president, and even the president himself, to use his legal role to challenge normal election protocols.
The White House did not comment when The Hill reached out.
Among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit was Kelli Ward, who chairs the Arizona Republican Party and previously served as Arizona state senator. Ward has repeatedly echoed unsupported claims, similar to Trump’s and his allies, that the 2020 election was tainted by widespread fraud.
Ward was also involved in a previously unsuccessful lawsuit to overturn Biden’s Arizona victory.
Election law expert Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, said Pence’s position amounted to “a straightforward legal response” to the lawsuit.
The main argument is to say that the plaintiffs should have sued the Senate and the House of Representatives, not the vice president, but it also suggests reasons – such as the lack of a position on the part of the plaintiffs – that a lawsuit against the two chambers of Congress would also fail procedurally, ”Foley said.
In separate developments in the case, a Democrat-led House attorney indicated Thursday that Democratic lawmakers would file an amicus letter in the lawsuit.
In addition, a Colorado Biden voter asked the judge for permission to participate in the lawsuit as a defendant, citing concerns that Pence and the Department of Justice might not adequately represent the interests of Biden voters.
Updated at 7:09 PM