Donald Trump is setting up Mike Pence as the “fall guy” to blame when the results of the 2020 presidential election are not overturned in his favor, a report alleged.
Trump has been pressing the vice president to act on January 6, when Congress meets to formally tally the electoral votes and make Joe Biden’s win official. Trump has made a series of claims that Pence has the power to intervene in the process and prevent states won by Biden from being counted, though many legal experts disagree.
At a rally in Georgia ahead of two Senate runoff races, he even told his supporters that he would be upset at Pence if he doesn’t follow through with the plan to overturn the election outcome.
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you,” Trump said at the rally on Monday, via CNN . “Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him as much.”
As the legal news site Law & Crime reported, legal experts are nearly all in agreement that Pence does not hold the authority that Trump claims, and that his role is strictly procedural. The report speculated that by publicly asserting the vice president has a power that he does not have, Trump is setting him up to take the blame when the effort to invalidate voting results ultimately fails.
“By asserting—repeatedly and in crowded public places—that Pence has a power that Pence does not have, Trump has created a situation where Pence will be left holding the bag,” the report noted. “Pence will be remembered by millions of the president’s supporters as the guy who did not do something that he could not do.”
Trump has continued to insist that he was the real winner of the presidential election, saying that the victory was stolen from him through massive fraud. But the president’s campaign and allies have been unable to prove any of these allegations in court, losing a series of cases seeking to invalidate voting results and challenge state certifications.
Trump has continued to put public pressure not only on Pence but on supporters to show up for a rally in Washington on the day the final electoral votes are tallied, as well as lawmakers whom he hopes will act on his wishes. A number of Republican lawmakers have said they plan to object to the totals, though experts have said that their efforts are all but assured to fail.
