Female Trump supporter shot as mob storms Capitol building

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The entire National Guard has been deployed to the US Capitol after a woman was shot inside when President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building and violently clashed with police in a bid to stop Joe Biden’s victory being certified. 

The chaotic scenes broke out after dozens of Trump supporters breached security perimeters at the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, prompting police to enforce a 6pm curfew in DC and violence spread across the country.  

The woman was reportedly shot in the chest and is in a critical condition. It was not immediately clear who shot the woman. Dozens of police were also reportedly injured in the violence. 

At least one explosive device was found near the Capitol amid the violence, according to law enforcement sources.    

As protesters continued to occupy the Capitol hours after the violence unfolded, President-elect Joe Biden called for the ‘mob to pull back’ and said the uprising bordered on sedition. 

Trump – after remaining silent for much of the afternoon – told his ‘very special’ supporters inside the Capitol that he loves them and understands their pain but urged them ‘to go home’.

He had initially urged his supporters to march to the Capitol after a rally earlier in the afternoon before only asking them to remain peaceful when violence broke out.  

As the protesters broke down police barricades and stormed into the Rotunda, Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders were whisked to safety. 

Lawmakers cowering inside the House Chamber were urged to put on gas masks as tear gas was fired in the Rotunda. Officers at the front door of the chamber had their guns drawn as a protester tried to break down the door. 

Police evacuated the House of Representatives and the Senate after the protesters marched through the halls of Congress, forcing both chambers to suspend deliberations as they were meeting to certify Biden’s victory.  

Protesters were heard banging on the doors of the House chamber and yelling outside as police officers rushed lawmakers out of the chamber and to safety.

One protester occupied the Senate dais and yelled: ‘Trump won that election.’ 

The chaotic scenes unfolded soon after Trump addressed thousands of protesters and urged his supporters to march to the Capitol. 

After protesters started clashing with law enforcement, Trump tweeted to his supporters to ‘stay peaceful’. 

‘Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!,’ the president wrote.

As the violence escalated, Trump tweeted: ‘I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!’ 

He did not initially tell the protesters to leave.

Capitol Police used tear gas as hundreds of people were seen climbing the marble steps outside the building. They banged on the locked doors of the Capitol and smashed the glass in the doors.

Demonstrators fought with police and then forced their way into the building. 

One protester jumped up on the dais, where the president of the Senate presides, and yelled: ‘Trump won that election.’

Several dozen protesters roamed the halls of the Capitol, yelling: ‘Where are they?’

Tear gas was being used by Capitol Police as protesters filled both the House and Senate side of the Capitol.

Another protester in the Senate yelled: ‘Where’s Pence, show yourself!’

The chaos caused the Capitol to go on lock down and disrupted the certification of the electoral college vote that would cement Biden’s victory.

The images played out live on national television and on social media. One of the protesters tweeted a photo from Speaker Pelosi’s office, meaning the person made it to the center of the Capitol.

Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a 6am curfew for the city.

As footage started coming out of Capitol Hill being breached by angry Trump supporters, Donald Trump Jr. tried to quell the outburst with a tweet – that was critical of Democrats and liberals.

‘This is wrong and not who we are. Be peaceful and use your 1st Amendment rights, but don’t start acting like the other side,’ Trump Jr. wrote. ‘We have a country to save and this doesn’t help anyone.’

Meanwhile, the president continued to direct his rage at Pence, who earlier announced he would not single-handedly overturn the election results from his position of the chair.

‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!’ the president wrote.

The extraordinary breech was a departure from security mishaps of the past. Protesters have routinely disrupted televised hearings while in progress and even events inside the House chamber. But trained Capitol Police are usually able to arrest disruptors and remove them immediately. Often formal charges are never filed.

But in Wednesday’s storming of the building, dozens of people made it by armed police officers and entered the building without going through any security set up to keep out those with weapons or dangerous items.

There were occasions after Sept. 11th when the building was placed on lockdown and people were ordered to leave, but this usually happened when suspicious packages were discovered.

There are more than 2,000 Capitol Police officer with jurisdiction over Capitol grounds. But footage from inside the building did not show an immediate effort to make mass arrests.

When the building is open, as it was before the pandemic, members of the general public are not allowed to walk unescorted on the second floor where lawmakers enter and exit the legislative chambers.

The protesters were aided by scaffolding constructed for the upcoming inauguration. 

In another tense piece of video from inside, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) tweeted video of protesters repeatedly rushing Capitol Police officers in the crypt, in the ground floor part of the building under the rotunda.

‘I like many people voted for President Trump in the 2020 election and hoped for a different result,’ McCaul wrote. ‘But violence and destruction is not the way to express your grievances. This is disgraceful and has to end.’

Trump told thousands of supporters just outside the White House that he wanted Pence to ‘come through’ for us and demanded that he reject electoral votes out of hand over that the president claims is ‘fraud.’

He threatened Pence saying ‘I’m not hearing good stories’ and telling him to have ‘courage’ to strike down swing states’ votes – a move which would defy the constitution.

But minutes before arriving on Capitol Hill to preside over the joint session of Congress to certify the election’s outcome, Pence bluntly told lawmakers that he would refuse to obey Trump’s orders.

Pence sent a letter to the 535 senators and representatives on Capitol Hill ahead of his presiding over the Joint Session that will certify Joe Biden’s victory.

In it, he outlined his belief in his role in the proceedings, which he notes is ‘ceremonial’ and adds that it doesn’t include the authority to ‘determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.’

Trump has tried to put the blame on Pence for his expected loss on Wednesday but the president also lacks support among the majority of senators in his own party, which dooms his efforts for a congressional overthrow of the results. 

Pence acknowledged Trump’s allegations the election was rigged, of which there has been no proof and no court has upheld, in a likely peace offering to the president.

‘I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of this election,’ he wrote.

But he noted as vice president he does not have the power from the constitution to decide which electoral votes are counted and which are not.

‘As a student of history who loves the constitution and reveres its Framers, I do not believe that the Founds of our country intended to invest the vice president with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the Joint Session of Congress and no Vice President in American history has ever asserted such authority,’ Pence noted.

He added vice presidents in the past have conducted ‘the proceedings in an orderly manner even where the count resulted in the defeat of their party or their own candidacy.’

‘It is my considered judgement that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,’ he said.

He concluded his letter with a prayer to God: ‘When the Joint Session of Congress convenes today, I will do my duty to see to it that we open the certificates of electors of the several states, we hear objections raised by Senators and Representatives, and we count the votes of the Electoral College for President and Vice President in a manner consistent with our Constitution, laws and history. So Help Me God.’  

REPUBLICANS OBJECT TO ARIZONA’S VOTES 

Lawmakers got through Alabama and Alaska, two states that went for Trump, without an objection.

Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, objected to his state’s Electoral College votes going to Biden and Harris. He confirmed that his objection had been signed on to by a U.S. senator.

Democrats in the chamber audibly groaned.

Droves of Republicans in the chamber stood up and clapped.

The move forced Pence to order the houses out of joint session. The senators in the House chamber started moving back toward their side of the U.S. Capitol. 

On the House side, during their debate on the Arizona objection, Republican lawmakers used their time to complain about the treatment of the president, particularly the impeachment process and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

They did not offer any proof of voter fraud but complained that voter laws were changed ahead of the November contest, which is not illegal.

‘The law says voter registration ends on October 5. Democrats said we don’t care what the law says they went to a court got an Obama appointed judge to extend in 18 days,’ Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, a top Trump ally on Capitol Hill, complained of Arizona.

Many states had their voter registration deadlines extended because of the coronavirus pandemic – the extension applied to voters of both parties. Other states extended the time period allowing mail-in voting, again because of the pandemic and it applied to all voters.

Democrats argued the election was legally conducted.

‘Under some of the most trying circumstances in our history, our fellow citizens conducted a free and fair election vindicating our founders belief once again that we were capable of self government, and a peaceful transition of power,’ Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi presided over the debate. She sanitized the gavel before she used it. Pence had used it when he presided over the Joint Session.

Pelosi also reminded lawmakers that only 11 members from each party were allowed on the House floor at a time due to social distancing. She called out Republicans for having too many lawmakers on the floor.

MITCH MCCONNELL SLAMS ELECTION ‘CONSPIRACY THEORIES’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shamed Donald Trump and his own Republican colleagues for mounting challenges to the Electoral College vote count, saying their doing so could lead to a ‘death spiral’ of American democracy – and pointing out there’s no real evidence of widespread voter fraud.

‘We’re debating a step that has never been taken in American history, whether Congress should overrule the voters and overturn a presidential election,’ he said on the Senate floor, after Rep. Paul Gosar and a batch of GOP senators, including Sen. Ted Cruz, objected to Arizona’s Electoral College vote count.

McConnell ridiculed President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud in a five-minute speech which will be one of his last as majority leader – and which he said was about the most important vote of his career.

‘The assertions range from specific, local allegations to Constitutional arguments to sweeping conspiracy theories,’ McConnell said.

He reminded senators that he was supportive of Trump using the country’s legal system, which handed the president and his team loss after loss. And pointed out that these cases were heard by some of the ‘all-star judges whom the president himself nominated’ – including on the U.S. Supreme Court.

McConnell said that every election is plagued by some instances of vote irregularity’And of course that’s unacceptable,’ he said.

The top Senate Republican also said he supported ‘strong state-led votign reforms,’ adding that he didn’t wan tto see ‘last year’s bizarre pandemic procedures’ – like mail-in ballots that gave Democrats an edge – ‘become the new norm.’

‘But my colleagues nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election,’ McConnell argued. ‘Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break, when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence.’

He pointed out that the Constitution gives Congress a ‘limited role.’

‘We simply can’t declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids,’ McConnell said.

Twisting the knife into Trump, McConnell also pointed out that the race between Biden and Trump ‘was not unusually close.’

‘The Electoral College margin was almost identical to what it was in 2016,’ McConnell pointed out.

‘If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side our democracy would enter a death spiral,’ McConnell warned. ‘We’d never see a whole nation accept an election again.’

‘Every four years there would be a scramble for power at any cost,’ he added. 

TRUMP’S STOP THE STEAL RALLY 

This came after President Donald Trump excoriated ‘weak’ Republicans and demanded fealty from Pence to a rally crowd near the White House Wednesday where he demanded Pence and Congress overturn the election results that lead to his defeat.

In an extraordinary speech, Trump once again called his election ‘rigged’ just minutes before a joint meeting of Congress was to begin counting the certified electoral votes that have him losing to Joe Biden. 

Trump referred to votes that came in after 10pm election night – which consisted of in-person and mail-in ballots and denied him the lead he said he and his pollsters anticipated – as ‘these explosions of bullsh*t.’ 

Members of the crowd immediately chanted ‘Bullshi*t!’ in response. 

‘Our election was over at 10:00 in the evening,’ Trump said.

Trump mocked his party’s 2012 Republican presidential nominee, now-Sen. Mitt Romney, for conceded his own race back then.

‘We will never concede. It doesn’t happen,’ he said – although losing candidates have conceded for generations. ‘There’s never been anything like this. It’s a pure theft.’ 

Trump’s comments amounted to a declaration of war on elements of his party, after his lawyer Rudy Giuliani demanded ‘trial by combat’ against opponents of his claims of election fraud.

Trump spoke to a crowd of several thousand – but referred to them as consisting of ‘hundreds of thousands’ of supporters fathered on a lawn south of the White House that doesn’t hold that many.

He said his election was ‘stolen by the fake news media. That’s what they’ve done and that’s what they’re doing.’

He urged his supporters to march down to the Congress, which was to commence the count at 1 pm.

‘We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,’ he said, speaking from behind a pane of bullet-proof material.

He turned up the heat on Pence, a potential 2024 contender who will preside over the count. His role is set in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act, and is largely ceremonial.

‘Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn’t that will be a sad day for our country because you’re sworn to uphold our Constitution,’ he said.

Trump acknowledged that he has tried to pressure Pence into rejecting votes from states he lost, quoting from a conversation he has denied happened.

‘All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to re-certify and we become president and you are the happiest people,’ he told his fans, who cheered ‘Stop the Steal!’ at times.

‘I said Mike, that doesn’t take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage. And then we’re stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that,’ he said of Biden.

Trump touted his own vote total, but denied Biden’s was real.

‘And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes?’ Trump asked rhetorically. ‘Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It’s a disgrace,’ Trump said.

His mention of the pandemic came in terms of his own race, where millions voted by mail as thousands battled infections in a year more than 300,000 Americans died of COVID-19.

‘They’ve used the pandemic as a way of defrauding the people in a proper election,’ Trump said.

‘Eight weeks. I want to go back eight weeks. Let’s go back eight weeks,’ he mused at one point, as he described a conversation with an unnamed official who told him that he would be lock to win in 2024.  

Trump repeatedly couched his demands not as an effort to overturn the votes of the people, but as a legal effort.

‘Somebody says: Well we have to obey the Constitution,’ Trump said. ‘And you are, because you’re protecting our country and you’re protecting the Constitution so you are,’ he said.

He said it would protect the country from having what he called ‘an illegitimate president.’

‘The states were defrauded. They were given false information,’ Trump claimed.

During various tangents, he complained about how he is treated on social media, such as when ‘I get a flag’ on his tweets. ‘I don’t care about Twitter, Twitter’s bad news, he said afterward.

He went after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell several times, including for not going along with his proposal to change communications laws.

‘I helped Mitch get elected,’ he said of the longtime incumbent.

‘And then all of a sudden you have something like this,’ he said, going after ‘weak Republicans’ and ‘pathetic Republicans’ – despite a top official in Georgia blaming him for the likely defeats of two Senate Republican incumbents.

He also called out Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) after her comment that failing to accept the electors certified by states would violate the Constitution.

‘The Liz Cheneys of the world, we’ve got to get rid of them,’ Trump said.

‘Brian Kemp – vote him the hell out of office please,’ Trump said of the Georgia governor.

He said Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger had ‘no clue’ what was going on, but then said ‘maybe’ he was with the other side – the Democrats.

‘I can’t believe this guy was a Republican,’ said Trump. ‘He loves recording telephone conversations,’ Trump said – mentioning a leaked call where Trump can be heard asking him to ‘find’ 11,780 votes to make him the winner.

‘People love that conversation, because it says what’s going on,’ Trump said.  

Trump also complained about the Supreme Court, which failed to take up a Texas lawsuit he sought to join, and even his former attorney general Bill Barr, who said before leaving his post there wasn’t sufficient fraud to change the outcome.

‘I’m not happy with the Supreme Court. They look to rule against me. I picked three people. I fought like hell for one in particular,’ Trump inveighed.

‘You know I read a story in one of the newspapers recently, how I control the three Supreme Court Justices. I control them. They’re puppets. I read it about Bill Barr – that he’s my personal attorney, that he’ll do anything for me.

‘But he denied pulling Barr’s strings’And I said, you know, it really is genius, because what they do is that, and it makes it really impossible for them to ever give you a victory, because all of a sudden Bill Barr changed if you hadn’t noticed. I like Bill Barr but he changed because he didn’t want to be considered my personal attorney, and the Supreme Court. They ruled against me so much you know why? Because the story is, I haven’t spoken to any of them. Any since virtually they got in, but the story is that they’re my puppet, right, that they’re puppets. And now that the only way they can get out of that – because they hate that it’s not good on the social circuit. And the only way they get out is to rule against Trump. So let’s rule against Trump and they do.’

‘You know I read a story in one of the newspapers recently, how I control the three Supreme Court Justices. I control them. They’re puppets. I read it about Bill Barr – that he’s my personal attorney, that he’ll do anything for me.’

But he denied pulling Barr’s strings’And I said, you know, it really is genius, because what they do is that, and it makes it really impossible for them to ever give you a victory, because all of a sudden Bill Barr changed if you hadn’t noticed. I like Bill Barr but he changed because he didn’t want to be considered my personal attorney, and the Supreme Court. They ruled against me so much you know why? Because the story is, I haven’t spoken to any of them. Any since virtually they got in, but the story is that they’re my puppet, right, that they’re puppets. And now that the only way they can get out of that – because they hate that it’s not good on the social circuit. And the only way they get out is to rule against Trump. So let’s rule against Trump and they do.’

Giuliani said, ‘If we’re wrong we will be made fools of, but if we’re right a lot of them will go to jail. Let’s have trial by combat,’ he said, without explaining exactly what he meant by combat.

‘I’m willing to stake my reputation, the president is willing to stake his reputation on the fact that we’re going to find criminality there,’ said the former New York mayor. Trump and his allies have suffered dozens of losses in state and federal courts with suits charging election fraud.

He spoke to thousands of cheering supporters on the Ellipse south of the White House. A permit was for 30,000 people.

The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., claimed there were 100,000 people there but images showed far fewer.

He bashed elected Republicans who have refused to go along with his father’s claims of fraud.

‘The people who did nothing to stop the steal — this gathering should send a message to them. This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party. This is the Republican Party that will put America first,’ he said.

His girlfriend, former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, also spoke.

After claiming fraud in Trump’s election, John Eastman claimed fraud in the count Tuesday night, which allowed Rev. Raphael Warnock to be called as the winner in one runoff and has Democrat Jon Ossoff leading in another.

Explaining how the fraud he claims occurred happened, Eastman said: ‘You know the old way was to have a bunch of ballots sitting in a box under the floor … They put those ballots in a secret folder in the machines, sitting there waiting until they know how many they need … I can now in that machine match those unvoted ballots with an unvoted voter and put them together in the machine. How do we know that happened last night in real time? You saw when it went to 99 per cent of the vote total, and it stopped.’

He pointed to a point late in the vote count while counties were still tabulating votes – a version of Trump’s complaint that he led in early returns on election night in November. Last night, Republicans led until addition in-person votes came in in populous Democratic-leaning counties ‘That means they were unloading the ballots from that secret folder,’ he claimed.

At least 10 people were arrested for gun possession crimes and other violations and others were seen clashing with counter-demonstrators.

One man from North Carolina was detained after he was caught carrying a gun without a license.

The man rode into the capital on a bus which was stopped by police near Ninth Street and Constitution Avenue NW.

Police boarded the bus and confiscated a rifle and a handgun as well as a drum magazine that holds additional ammunition. 

Many in the crowd were photographed not wearing masks and gathered in tight quarters, shoulder to shoulder, despite the raging pandemic and the nationwide surge in the number of coronavirus cases.  

‘Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!’ Donald Trump turns on Pence telling him to ignore the constitution and refuse to certify Joe Biden’s victory in Congress – which even a White House aide calls ‘shameful’

Donald Trump tweeted furiously at his own vice president Mike Pence Wednesday to demand he refuse to certify Joe Biden‘s election victory.

Trump demanded Pence ignore the constitution and instead ‘return’ swing states‘ slates of electors for Joe Biden to Republican-controlled legislatures who would then submit their own Trump electors.

Pence has no such power to do so – and told Trump that over lunch on Tuesday, the  New York Times reported – but Trump doubled down on his demands as thousands of his supporters, some in camouflage, gathered close to the White House. 

‘States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!’ Trump tweeted.

At the White House there was shock that Trump would turn so publicly on his ultra-loyal VP.

CNN reported that one aide called attacking the VP ‘shameful,’ amid fears from Pence’s camp that worse was to come.

The tweet was hours before Pence was due to preside over the joint session of Congress which will formally declare Biden the election victor – and as the Republican party adsorbed the shock of being on the brink of losing the Senate.

Trump appeared to concede that the Senate was lost in an all-capitals tweet claiming that Republicans need to keep ‘the power of the veto.’

‘THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, OUR COUNTRY, NEEDS THE PRESIDENCY MORE THAN EVER BEFORE – THE POWER OF THE VETO. STAY STRONG!THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, OUR COUNTRY, NEEDS THE PRESIDENCY MORE THAN EVER BEFORE – THE POWER OF THE VETO. STAY STRONG!’ Trump tweeted.

A move to turn on Pence had been growing in inevitability for days. Axios reported that Trump had no idea that Pence oversaw the certification of the election results – until he learned about it from a television ad by the Lincoln Project, the never-Trump Republican group led by Kellyanne Conway’s husband George.

On Tuesday night ABC News’ White House Correspondent Jon Karl reported that Trump was ‘prepared to go after Pence and go after him hard’ if he does not get in line and overturn the election at the special session of Congress which begins at 1pm Wednesday. 

That was after Trump slammed as ‘fake news’ the revelation that Pence had told him he was powerless to stop Biden’s win in a statement which was signed only by Trump – and not by his deputy.

‘Decertifying’ the results would plunge the country into a constitutional crisis but Trump claimed that Pence was in ‘total agreement’ that he ‘has the power to act.’ 

Trump’s statement publicly turned the heat up on Pence after a pressure campaign which has been going on in private for weeks and exploded into the public on Monday night at Trump’s Georgia rally, then on Twitter Tuesday. 

‘The New York Times report regarding comments Vice President Pence supposedly made to me today is fake news,’ Trump said in a statement issued by the White House. It was dated 2020.

‘He never said that. The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.

‘The November 3rd election was corrupt in contested states, and in particular it was not in accordance with the Constitution in that they made large scale changes to election rules and regulations as dictated by local judges and politicians, not by state legislators. This means that it was illegal.

‘Our Vice President has several options under the U.S. Constitution. He can decertify the results or send them back to the states for change and certification. 

‘He can also decertify the illegal and corrupt results and send them to the House of Representatives for the one vote for one state tabulation.’

Significantly, however, the statement was not signed by Pence – and the legal claims Trump made appeared to be in line with plans outlined by Rudy Giuliani, not the Senate Parliamentarian who has advised Pence that his powers are limited to confirming the Electoral College votes read out on the floor of Congress.

Trump also tweeted ‘big news from Pennsylvania’ with a copy of a letter sent by Republican state lawmakers to Mitch McConnell and the Republican minority leader in the House asking for certification to be ‘delayed.’

The lawmakers claimed that the election outcome should be put off until after the Supreme Court has considered a Republican challenge to how Pennsylvania’s voting was run – which the justices have scheduled no date to hear, and asked for responses on January 22, after Trump leaves office. 

The letter repeats claims about the election which have been dismissed by state and federal courts repeatedly. 

That Trump tweeted it shows his level of desperate clutching at straws with Congress all but certain to torpedo his bid to overturn the election as early as Wednesday. 

Trump had first wanted Republicans to vote to reject electors from swing states, but a majority of GOP senators have made clear they will not go along with that, making it dead on arrival.

His next attempt is to claim Pence has powers to simply reject votes himself, a claim advanced by Rudy Giuliani and other fringe lawyers but dismissed by constitutional experts as absurd.

Pence was himself reported to have told Trump Tuesday that he was wrong.

He delivered the bad news over lunch, the New York Times reported, sugaring the pill by suggesting he could in some way acknowledge Trump’s discredited claims when he presides over the Senate. 

Ahead of the traditionally ceremonial event, President Donald Trump had escalated his pressure campaign on Pence to help him overturn the election results and spend another four years in the White House.

‘The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,’ the president tweeted on Tuesday morning, wrongly stating what Pence can do when he is in the presiding chair.

But shortly after when the two met for their regular lunch, Pence delivered the bad news that he could not. 

The New York Times reported that Pence also told Trump to lighten the blow that he would keep ‘studying the issue’ until the joint session begins at 1pm Wednesday.

In fact Pence spent hours this week with the Senate Parliamentarian, who advises senators and the vice president on the rules when they are on the floor of the Senate – or in Pence’s unique case, presiding over the joint session certifying the election. 

If a member of the House and Senate both object to one of the state’s slates of electors, the two chambers split to debate the objection for two hours – with Pence presiding over the Senate.

That is when he could offer some ‘acknowledgment’ of Trump’s claims about fraud to ameliorate both the blow to his boss, and the potential for the president to turn on his ultra-loyal deputy in the dying days of the administration, and beyond. 

Pence is said to be particularly concerned that his certification of Biden’s victory could be weaponized against him on social media.

His delivery of bad news to Trump came after a lawsuit brought by Louis Gohmert, an ultra-loyalist congressman, which demanded that federal courts say Pence could disqualify electoral college votes was dismissed rapidly by a judge and an appeals court. 

That legal move would have offered Pence some cover that he could point to judges as having ruled out the possibility that he could disqualify voters – which no vice president had ever done and which constitutional experts had said was simply legally impossible.

But an ‘acknowledgment’ of Trump’s claims represents a Pyrrhic victory for the president – with Republican senators dealing his campaign to have them vote against approving swing states’ votes a series of blows Tuesday, as more and more said they would not get behind it.

Senators Tim Scott and Jim Inhofe became the latest GOP lawmakers to risk the wrath of Trump with their decision to back Biden.

‘As I read the Constitution, there is no constitutionally viable means for the Congress to overturn an election wherein the states have certified and sent their Electors. Some of my colleagues believe they have found a path, and while our opinions differ, I do not doubt their good intentions to take steps towards stamping out voter fraud,’ Scott said in a statement.

Inhofe also cited the Constitution as his reason.

‘My job on Wednesday is clear, and there are only two things I am permitted to do under the Constitution: ensure the electors are properly certified and count the electoral votes, even when I disagree with the outcome,’ he said in a statement. 

More and more Republican senators joined in as the clock ticked toward Wednesday, including Senators Jerry Moran and John Boozman. 

Moran said the plan to object would ‘risk undermining our democracy–which is built upon the rule of law and separation of powers.’

And Boozman made a similar argument.

‘Under the Constitution, Congress does not have the legal authority to change the outcome,’ he said. ‘These principles are enshrined in the Constitution to ensure the American people, not the party in control of Congress, have the power to choose their president.’

At least 24 Republican senators will vote to certify Biden’s election win, according to a count by Politico while 13 are supporting Trump. And 14 are undecided. The Senate is short one senator as David Perdue’s term ended January 3rd. The winner of Tuesday’s special election in Georgia will take the seat. 

It takes a simple majority of 51 senators to sustain the objection to a state’s electoral college result, upending it. 

But with all 48 Democrats unlikely to do so and the 24 Republicans joining them, that’s 72 votes for Biden, leaving Trump’s hopes in the dust. 

Senator Ted Cruz, who is leading the objection effort, will challenge the results of Arizona on Wednesday while Senator Kelly Loeffler will likely lead the objection when it comes to the results in her home state of Georgia. Senator Josh Hawley, another GOP leader in the movement, will challenge Pennsylvania’s. 

The focus of the objections would be on those three states – down from the original six lawmakers originally discussed.  

Even without the outcome highly unlikely to go Trump’s way there is bound to be plenty of fiery floor debate and political theater. 

But Trump may not get a mass gathering of Republican lawmakers protesting on the floor.

The House Sergeant at Arms and Capitol physician sent a memo to lawmakers Tuesday evening about the joint session, requesting that ‘access to the Floor of the House will be limited to those Members who are scheduled to speak during the joint session.’

And for Pence, who has walked the tight rope of Trump’s presidency for four years without faltering, what he does Wednesday will be the ultimate loyalty test, at least in the eyes of the president, who is publicly putting on the pressure. 

Trump has made it clear he expects his second-in-command to keep him in the White House even if Pence does not legally or constitutionally have the power to do so.

‘I hope Mike Pence comes through for us. He’s a great guy,’ Trump told a campaign rally Monday night in Dalton, Georgia. ‘Of course if he doesn’t come through I won’t like him quite as much.’ 

Ultimately, Biden is expected to be certified as the winner of the election on Wednesday, which Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, is expected to announce after the certification is complete. 

The 12th amendment of the Constitution – along with the Electoral Count Act of 1887 – makes it clear Pence’s role is to make parliamentary rulings. It does not include any power in how Congress counts the electoral votes. 

When it comes to a conflict between the House and Senate over whether or not to certify a state’s electoral college count, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 gives the deciding power to the state’s governor and not the vice president, meaning the state’s result will stand and Pence has no legal path to overturning it.

Pence would not be the first vice president to have to preside over his party’s loss of the White House: Richard Nixon, Dan Quayle, Al Gore and Joe Biden all presided over counts that handed them, or their party, a defeat. Biden even gaveled down an effort to object to Trump’s victory when he presided over the electoral count in January 2017.

But Pence is likely the first vice president who will be blamed by his boss for it.

Biden won the electoral college by 306 votes to Trump’s 232. When all is said and done, Biden will be inaugurated the 46th president on January 20th.

Trump, however, has refused to concede the contest. He continues to claim massive voter fraud but has shown no proof of any such thing. His former Attorney General Bill Barr said he saw no evidence of widespread voter fraud.  

A report in Roll Call raised questions about what exactly Pence will do Wednesday. The Capitol Hill newspaper quoted Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the pro temp of the Senate, saying he would be presiding instead of Pence because ‘we don’t expect him to be there.’ 

But Pence’s office was quick to say the vice president would be present and Grassley’s office quickly clarified the senator was referring to having to take over if Pence needed a break. 

It raised questions, however, if Pence would be taking those breaks when things got hot politically speaking.

Pence’s role is to open the states’ sealed certificates in alphabetical order and hand them them to one of four ‘tellers’ — a Republican and a Democrat from each chamber of Congress  – who will announce how each state voted. 

As each state’s result is read, Pence will ask whether any member of Congress wishes to raise an objection. If an objection is raised from both a House and Senate member, the matter goes to each chamber for two hours of debate and a vote on whether or not to sustain the objection.

As part of his parliamentary duties, it’s Pence who will decide if the objection is valid to warrant the two-hour debate and vote in each chamber. 

After the breakout session, lawmakers return to the joint session to continue the roll call of state results. If there is another objection, the process begins all over again.

Given the Democratic control of the House and the fact that many Republican senators don’t support the objections, none are expected to be sustained.

Trump and his allies were hoping enough objections would occur to bring Biden under the 270 mark in the electoral college count – the amount needed to win the presidency.

That would throw the election to the House. Under the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, each state congressional delegation gets one vote. While Democrats control the House, Republicans control the majority of state delegations, which is how Trump hopes to be ‘elected.’ 

While campaigning for Georgia’s Senate candidates in that state on Monday, Pence responded to shouts of the ‘stop the steal’ with this: ‘We all got our doubts about the last election. And I want to assure you, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about voting irregularities. And I promise you, come this Wednesday, we’ll have our day in Congress.’ 

He made no promises of an outcome. 

Other points of pressure are coming Pence’s way.

Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, claimed inaccurately on Fox News over the weekend that Pence could call for an ’emergency 10-day audit’ of the election returns in the states Trump allies are disputing.  Pence does not have that power. 

Pence and his chief of staff Marc Short were in the Oval Office with President Trump and other advisers on Monday night before the president left for Georgia to campaign for the two Republican senators on the ballot in Tuesday’s special election.

But most of Trump’s remarks at that rally were about himself. 

‘You know I’ve had two elections, I’ve won both of them, it’s amazing,’ Trump said. ‘And I actually did much better in the second one.’ 

‘Don’t argue with fools!’ Top Democrat Cedric Richmond warns party’s reps not to get dragged into debate in Congress over Republicans’ bid to overturn the election results on Wednesday 

President Trump‘s demand that Congress overturn the election results in states he lost has provoked a split in his party – and Democratic leaders are now cautioning their own members to steer clear of arguments when the vote gets certified.

Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana Democrat who is joining the incoming Biden administration as director of White House engagement, has told colleagues there isn’t an upside to jumping into a point-by-point clash over Trump’s election fraud claims.

‘You don’t argue with fools, because at a distance you can’t tell who the fool is,’ he said on a party conference call Monday, Politico reported.  

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is mindful of the spectacle that the election challenges could provoke – and wants her members to be ‘dignified’ through the process – although unsubstantiated allegations of widespread fraud by Texas GOP Rep. Louis Goehmert and others is certain to provoke an angry backlash.

The House meets Wednesday in a special joint session to count the Electoral College votes. 

The number of Republican senators planning to go along with election challenges grew to 13 at Trump’s Georgia rally when Sen. Kelly Loeffler announced she was behind the effort.

But the leaked recording of Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger may have undermined the Senate GOP efforts by linking claims the lawmakers hitched to the Constitution to the president’s request that Raffensperger ‘find’ 11,780 votes for him.  

It was unclear if the explosive call had prompted Senate Republicans to dial back some of their plans and focus on a smaller number of states to launch challenges. 

Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling debunked many of the president’s ‘fantastical’ claims in a press conference Monday.

GOP strategist Doug Heye told The Hill regarding Trump’s leaked call: ‘The tape now makes it harder for other people to join on. They had a legal process argument that they could make even if it wasn’t the most credible one,’ he continued. ‘The tape blows that out of the water.’

Whatever Democratic leaders caution, rank-and-file Democrats who get opportunities to speak when Republicans raise protests to states’ electoral votes are likely to get heated.  

Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) is among those who have erupted at Republicans going along with Trump’s effort. 

‘It’s treasonous. The fact of the matter is the election results have been certified,’ he said. 

If a House and Senate member object to a state’s certification, each chamber will meet separately for two hours to consider the challenge, where members will give speeches, followed by a vote.

More than 100 House Republicans are expected to back election challenges.