Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/456

 President Trump and Vice President Pence have both reflected on the events of January 6th in the months since then. Vice President Pence has described President Trump's demands as "un-American." President Trump has since insisted that Vice President Pence "could have overturned the Election!" Asked about the calls to hang the Vice President, President Trump said it was "common sense."

In early 2022, U.S. District Judge David Carter evaluated the Trump-Eastman scheme to pressure the Vice President. Judge Carter described it as "a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history." It was "a coup in search of a legal theory," Judge Carter found, that likely violated at least two Federal laws. The Trump-Eastman scheme was not a feature of the U.S. Constitution, as President Trump told his supporters. Instead, it "would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution."

And it all began because President Trump refused to accept the result of the election, expressed through the votes of 81 million Americans.

When the electoral college met to cast votes for the certified winner in each State on December 14, 2020, any possibility of President Trump reversing his defeat came to an end. The contest was decided well before then, but December 14th marked what should have been the formal end of the Trump campaign. Former Vice President Biden had won the election and his victory was cemented by the States' electoral votes. Instead of bowing to this reality, some pro-Trump lawyers had already begun scheming ways to deny the inevitable. Over the course of the post-election period, as their other plans each failed, the importance of January 6th and the need to pressure Vice President Pence increased. These same lawyers concluded that the Vice President could help President Trump subvert the election on January 6th, but they would need Vice President Pence to set aside history and the law to do so. They'd need him to violate the Electoral Count Act of 1887 ("the ECA"). The ECA had governed the joint session for 130 years, but it was an inconvenient barrier for President Trump's plan to stay in office.