WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to dismiss a charge-hijp lawsuit led by a House Republican seeking to empower Vice President Mike Pence to review the results of the presidential election run by Joe Biden. are won when Congress formally counts the votes of the Electoral College next week.
Pence, as President of the Senate, will oversee the Wednesday session and declare the winner of the race at the White House. The Electoral College confirmed Biden’s 306-232 victory this month, and multiple legal efforts by President Donald Trump’s campaign to challenge the results have failed.
The lawsuit names Pence, who plays a largely ceremonial role in next week’s proceedings, as the defendant and asks the court to throw out the 1887 law describing how Congress deals with vote counting. It claims that the vice president “can exercise exclusive power and discretion to determine which electoral votes should count for a particular state.”
The Justice Department is representing Pence in a case that aims to find a way to keep his boss, President Donald Trump, in power. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Texas, the department said Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Arizona Republican voters have “indicted the wrong suspect” – when, in fact, one of the prosecutors is actually “making a lawyer allegation. “
“It is the role prescribed for the Senate and House of Republicans in the Electoral Count Act that plaintiffs object to, not the actions taken by Vice President Pence. … A lawsuit to determine that the vice president has discretion over the count, filed against the vice president, is an ongoing legal contradiction. “
Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in nearly 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud. But a string of impartial election officials and Republicans have confirmed there was no fraud in the November contest that would alter the results of the election. That includes former Attorney General William Barr, who said he saw no reason to appoint special counsel to investigate the president’s allegations about the 2020 election. He resigned last week.
Trump and his allies have filed about 50 lawsuits against the election results, and almost all of them have been dismissed or dropped. He has also lost twice in the Supreme Court.