Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and members of the House Freedom Caucus are holding a news conference to appeal to Attorney General William Barr for findings of an investigation into allegations of 2020 election fraud outside the Capitol on Thursday 3 December 2020. .
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
The Justice Department on Thursday charged a desperate lawsuit to block the election of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College, calling the case against Vice President Mike Pence “a legal contradiction.”
The DOJ has said in a new court that Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas and 11 Republicans in Arizona have sued “the wrong accused” – Pence – in the case.
And top DOJ officials have urged a judge to grant the request that he issue an emergency order, which would allegedly empower Pence to ignore the votes of the electoral college of a handful of battlefield states, giving Biden his margin of victory over President Donald Trump gives, to reject.
Pence will chair Congress next week when it convenes to confirm Biden’s victory.
Gohmert’s case asks federal judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee in the U.S. District Court of Texas, to declare that Pence has the “exclusive authority and sole discretion” to decide which electoral votes of a given state must be counted.
The Republicans are asking Kernodle to hand over power to Pence by destroying key sections of the 1887 Counting Act, a law they say violates the 12th Amendment.
Gohmert’s claim is contrary to legal experts who say that Pence’s role, or the role of any vice president, is to provide for the counting of the votes cast by the Electoral College, and not to judge which votes are valid or not.
Pence is the sole defendant in the case – a fact that John Coghlan, the deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil division, emphasized when he argued that the order had been issued.
“These plaintiffs’ case is not a proper way to address these issues because the plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendant,” Coghlan wrote in a lawsuit.
“The vice president – the only defendant in this case – is ironically the person whose power they want to promote,” Coghlan wrote.
“The Senate and the House, not the Vice-President, have legal interests sufficiently detrimental to plaintiffs to argue a case or controversy under Article III. Defendant respectfully requests that the plaintiffs’ emergency motion be denied because the relief provided to plaintiffs is not properly does not lie to the vice president. “
Coghlan also suggested that the House and Senate, not Pence, would be if there was a proper target for Gohmert’s case.
“Indeed, if it is logical, it is the institutions against which the plaintiffs’ request for relief must apply.”
Later Thursday, an attorney from the House of Representatives filed his own order requesting Kernodle to dismiss the case.
“The dismissal of Representative Gohmert’s allegations – for which he clearly has no shortage – this case is merely another attempt by defeated elections in Arizona to overturn the results of the general vote in their state,” Douglas said. Letter, General Council of the House, written.
“The Arizona plaintiffs tried to stop the election and not in the lawsuit they filed in federal and state courts in Arizona,” Letter wrote.
“They are therefore asking this court in Texas to help them achieve what they could not do in Arizona. This court must reject the claim of the claim to overthrow a cornerstone of the democratic processes of our nation.”
The latest Republican case follows dozens of failed attempts by Trump’s campaigners and his allies to get courts to return or invalidate Biden.
Numerous Republicans in the House supported some of these efforts, most notably an attempt by Texas Attorney General Ken Proxton to have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the results of four major swing states. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Some Republican lawmakers plan to contest the election results when Congress convenes next Wednesday. Missouri Republican Josh Hawley became the first senator to take that step this week.
If one member of the House and one senator jointly object to the voters of a state, the two chambers must debate and vote on it separately.
Experts believe that there is no real chance of overthrowing the result of the election. Pence showed no indication that he would argue the objections or otherwise want to block the election.