FAKE ELECTORS: How Trump is lying about Mike Pence
Despite Donald Trump claiming otherwise, former Vice President Mike Pence published a book telling the true story of how he stood up to his boss and upheld the election.
Mike Pence’s autobiography does not exonerate Donald Trump for the criminal acts alleged in his Georgia (or any other) indictment.
It does outline how Pence worked to ensure that the fake elector slates would not be a successful tactic to subvert the will of voters and keep Trump in power, though.
Pence’s book may be entered into evidence in Trump’s felony cases, but if so, it’s unlikely it will benefit the defense.
In it, Pence made his case in advance of his presidential campaign, painting himself as the vaunted hero who quietly stepped between a would-be despot and his prize.
Misquoting by omission, Trump posted to his social media Wednesday morning, declaring that Pence had described learning that “miscellaneous slates” of electors are submitted every year, and declaring that this proved the case against him is “fake” and that it must be dropped.
There are at least two problems with this: first, it’s not quite what Pence said, and second, the charge against Trump isn’t merely for the existence of the false electors, but for the falsification of documents. Trump said:
“Big News! Mike Pence said, ‘I met with the Parliamentarian of the Senate, Elizabeth MacDonough, to discuss the procedures for the upcoming joint session on January 6. She told me that Congress always receives miscellaneous slates of electors every four years.’”
It’s only a lie by omission — without the rest of what Pence said in that paragraph, there’s lost context.
That passage of his book actually reads (emphasis added):
“I mentioned that I had heard that some alternate electors had been sent from several of the disputed states, and she told me that Congress always receives miscellaneous slates of electors every four years but that there was no alternate slate bearing what was known as a certificate of election from any competing state authority from any of the disputed states.“
From there, Pence went on to describe how he and MacDonough discussed the matter and added verbiage to the process that emphasized the lack of any legitimate alternate slates.
After each legitimate slate, he described it as follows:
“The parliamentarians have advised me [this] is the only certificate of vote from that state…and has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of that state purporting to appoint or ascertain electors.”
Thus, he differentiated the real electoral slates from any fake ones, which would not be submitted by the appropriate authority.
The problem with Trump’s fake electors, legally speaking, is not merely that they existed, but that they signed false documents, falsely purporting to be the correct electors of their states, and that there was (allegedly) a full-blown conspiracy to have those false, forged, illegal documents accepted as real, or real enough to justify rejecting the real votes.
Think of it this way: Monopoly money is only illegal if you try to pay your bills with it.
Trump’s post went on to cite Newsmax host Greg Kelly as the source of his information (you didn’t think he read the book, did you?) and quote him as saying this “turns upside down everything the Democrats said about January 6th.”
The problem with that is, it’s also not true.
This line in Pence’s book doesn’t change the attacks seen on camera, live-streamed as they happened, or all the other evidence that has been gathered.
If the charges against Trump were that fake electors were submitted and that he told lies, those would be dismissable enough — but the charges are forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery, conspiracy to commit filing false documents, and attempting to influence a public official to betray his oath of office, among others.
None of those is negated by either the portion of Pence’s book Trump shared or the portion he conveniently omitted.
See Trump’s post below.
