Congressman Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and members of the House Freedom Caucus conduct a press conference to call Attorney General William Barr to publicize the findings of an investigation into 2020 electoral fraud allegations, outside the Capitol on Thursday , December 3, 2020.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
The Justice Department opened a desperate lawsuit led by Republicans on Thursday to reverse President Election College’s victory for President-elect Joe Biden, calling the case against Vice President Mike Pence “a walking legal contradiction.”
The DOJ said in a new lawsuit that Representative Louis Gohmert, R-Texas and 11 Arizona Republicans “sued the wrong defendant” – Pence – in the case.
And senior DOJ officials urged a judge to reject the request that he issue an emergency injunction that was supposed to empower Pence to ignore the Electoral College votes of a handful of conflicting states that gave Biden his margin of victory over the President Donald Trump.
Pence is scheduled to preside over Congress next week when he meets to certify Biden’s victory.
Gohmert’s lawsuit asks federal judge Jeremy Kernodle, appointed by Trump in the United States Court for the Eastern District of Texas, to declare that Pence has “exclusive authority and exclusive discretion” to decide which electoral votes for a given state should be counted .
Republicans ask Kernodle to hand that power over to the Pence, eliminating key sections of the 1887 Electoral Counting Act, a law that they claim to contradict the 12th Amendment.
Gohmert’s claim conflicts with jurists who say that Pence’s role, or that of any vice president, is to preside over the count of votes presented by the Electoral College, not to judge which are valid or not.
Pence is the only defendant in the case – a fact that John Coghlan, the assistant attorney general for the DOJ civil division, highlighted when arguing against the injunction issued.
“The lawsuit of these plaintiffs is not an adequate vehicle for addressing these issues because the plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendant,” wrote Coghlan in a court case.
“The vice president – the only defendant in this case – is ironically the same person whose power they seek to promote,” wrote Coghlan.
“The Senate and the Chamber, not the vice president, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to the plaintiffs to justify a case or controversy under Article III. The defendant respectfully requests the plaintiffs’ denial of the emergency motion because the relief that the plaintiffs request is not adequately against the vice president. “
Coghlan also suggested that if there were any suitable targets for Gohmert’s case, it would be the House and the Senate, not Pence.
“In fact, as a matter of logic, it is these bodies against which the measures requested by the plaintiffs must compete.”
Later on Thursday, a lawyer in the House of Representatives filed his own petition, asking Kernodle to close the case.
“Leaving Mr Gohmert’s allegations aside – for which he clearly lacks legitimacy – this case is simply another attempt by the defeated Arizona election nominees to overturn the results of the popular vote in his state,” wrote Douglas Letter, general counsel for the Chamber.
“Arizona plaintiffs tried, unsuccessfully, to annul the election in lawsuits they opened in Arizona’s federal and state courts,” Letter wrote.
“So, they now ask this court in Texas to help them achieve what they failed to do in Arizona. This Court should reject the plaintiffs’ offer to overturn a cornerstone of our nation’s democratic processes. ”
The last-minute Republican process follows dozens of failed attempts by the Trump and his allies campaign to get the courts to revoke or invalidate Biden’s electoral votes.
Numerous House Republicans supported some of these efforts, notably an offer by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to have the U.S. Supreme Court cancel the results of four decisive states. The higher court refused to hear this case.
Some Republican lawmakers are planning to challenge the election results when Congress meets next Wednesday. Republican Josh Hawley of Missouri this week became the first senator to take that step.
If a member of the House and a senator jointly object to a state’s electoral ticket, the two houses must debate separately and then vote on the objection.
Experts say there is no real chance of overturning the election result. Pence has shown no indication that he will accept these objections or otherwise attempt to annul the election.