In yesterday's testimony.
Gregory Jacob, Mike Pence's legal counsel during the Trump presidency, testified about John Eastman's influence during the days leading to the 2020 election certification on Jan. 6, 2021.
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Jacob said that by early January 2021, he had thoroughly researched how to handle the 2020 election results, under The Electoral Count Act. The act governs the way that electoral votes are cast and counted during presidential elections, and precludes any constitutional powers the vice president might have around certifying the electoral count.
The attorney said he and Pence concluded that neither the vice president nor Trump had the authority to contest or delay election results.
“It was always his view that it did not make any constitutional sense to him that the framers of our Constitution would vest authority to reject electors in one individual,” Jacob said of Pence, who himself has been a lawyer.
He recounted meetings with Eastman, with Trump present, the week of Jan. 6, where Eastman suggested that Pence let states finish investigating the electoral results. He wrote to Pence that Eastman’s theory was “unworkable” and concluded that Congress and the vice president cannot reject electors. The next day Eastman advised Pence to reject electors, and Jacob saw Trump tweeting that Pence did have the power to “win the presidency.”
“No vice president in the entire history of our country has ever asserted that they had the authority that Dr. Eastman was now asserting that Pence should assert that he, as vice president, had,” Jacob said. “What we had here was a sentence in the Constitution that is ambiguous, in the sense that it does not say anything about rejecting electors at all.
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