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Trump Urges Jan. 6 Committee To Investigate Mike Pence

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND - AUGUST 26: President Donald Trump and his wife first lady Melania Trump stand with Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence after his acceptance speech for the vice presidential nomination during the Republican National Convention at Fort McHenry National Monument on August 26, 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland. The convention is being held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic but includes speeches from various locations including Charlotte, North Carolina, Washington, DC, and Baltimore, Maryland

Former President Donald Trump urged the House select committee looking into last year’s Jan. 6 Capitol attack to investigate why his Vice President Mike Pence did not reject the Electoral College results.

He argued that if he had done that, the Capitol attack would not have occurred. He also implicated Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in his statement.

“If it [Electoral College votes] were sent back to the legislators, or if Nancy Pelosi, who is in charge of Capitol security, had taken my recommendation and substantially increased security, there would have been no ‘January 6’ as we know it!” Trump said in a statement released through his Save America PAC.

“Therefore, the Unselect Committee should be investigating why Nancy Pelosi did such a poor job of overseeing security and why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval, in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so!” he added.

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Trump also voiced his disapproval of the senators on Capitol Hill working to amend the Electoral Count Act.

“In other words, they lied, and the Vice President did have this right or, more pointedly, could have sent the votes back to various legislators for reassessment after so much fraud and irregularities were found,” Trump said in the statement.

On Capitol Hill, several groups of senators are meeting to discuss changes to the 1887 law.

The group of Democrats includes Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota) and Dick Durbin (Illinois). They produced legislation on Tuesday that would increase the number of lawmakers needed to back a Vice President’s objection before being voted on by both chambers. It would also require the support of three-fifths of Congress to uphold the objection, rather than a simple majority.

Meanwhile, the bipartisan group led by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) met on Monday. They divided their proposal into subgroups: reforming the Electoral Count Act; protecting election workers; voting practices and rights; the election assistance commission; and presidential transitions. The bipartisan group has been in conversation with the group of Democrats.