WASHINGTON – Vice President Mike Pence has asked a federal judge to reject a lawsuit filed by a group of Republicans who want to put the authority to overthrow electoral victory for President-elect Joe Biden in the hands of the vice president.
Pence, in a 14-page lawsuit by Justice Department attorneys on Thursday night, said the lawsuit should be filed against Congress.
“[T]This plaintiff lawsuit is not an adequate vehicle for addressing these issues because the plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendant, “says the reply, continuing that Pence” is ironically the same person whose power they seek to promote. “
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Representative Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of other Republicans filed the lawsuit against Pence this week, arguing that the vice president has constitutional authority to decide which states the Electoral College will vote for.
Pence must oversee Congress when he officially counts the votes cast by the Electoral College on January 6, and the process argues that Pence has constitutional authority to ignore votes cast for Biden in states where Republicans have tried to cast doubt on the results, where there are no virtually no evidence to support Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud.
In early December, states certified their results from the Electoral College, giving Biden 306 votes to 232 for President Donald Trump.
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The answer says that “the Senate and the House, not the vice president, have legal interests sufficiently adverse to the plaintiffs to support a case or controversy” and continued that Pence “respectfully requests the plaintiffs’ denial of the emergency motion because of the relief the plaintiffs’ request is not exactly against the vice president. “
The judge ordered Pence’s response to the case to be shelved by 5 pm Thursday, granting Gohmert’s group a request for agility
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In the motion to speed up the process, Gohmert and the others revealed Tuesday night that their lawyers had contacted the Office of the Vice President in an attempt to reach an agreement before going to court, but “these discussions were unsuccessful in reach an agreement and this action was brought ”in an indication that Pence would refuse to support the action.
“A process to establish that the vice president has discretionary power over counting, brought against the vice president, is a walking legal contradiction,” said Pence’s document.
U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Kernodle, who is appointed by Trump, currently has not scheduled a hearing on the case.
Several Republican Party lawmakers said they would object to the certification process on January 6.
This article was originally published in USA TODAY: Mike Pence asks the judge to open a case seeking to annul the election