Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/482

 On this cold, momentous day, I shiver as I think to myself, "January 6 will be either Mike Pence's finest hour or the traitorous 'Et tu, Brute?' end of both his and Donald Trump's political careers." The goal of these Trump allies was clear: to overturn the election result. Statements by participants in this effort indicate there were several different endgame strategies in mind. One was to get the Vice President to unilaterally reject the Electoral College votes of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and other States, then simply declare that Trump had won a majority of the electors actually submitted. The other major possibility was to reject or "return" the Electoral College votes of these States and then declare there was no majority in the Electoral College process, thereby triggering a so-called contingent election under the 12th Amendment. This would have meant that the House of Representatives had chosen the president not on the basis of one-member-one-vote, but on the basis of one-State-one-vote, pursuant to the 12th Amendment. Donald Trump's strategists emphasized repeatedly that the GOP had a 27-to-22 margin in control of the States' Congressional delegations, with Pennsylvania being tied at 9-to-9, therefore presumably a non-factor.

Despite the public pressure initiated by the President and amplified by Bannon, Navarro and others, there was no ambiguity in the Vice President's decision. By January 6th, President Trump had been told multiple times that Vice President Pence was not going to reject the certified electors from any State. Nor was Vice President Pence going to move for a delay and send the electors back to the States. Either move would have been illegal, requiring Vice President Pence to break the law, violating his oath to the U.S. Constitution. Pence made his decision clear "[m]any times" to President Trump, and he was "very consistent" in rejecting the President's demands. President Trump continued to publicly pressure the Vice President anyway. At 1:00 a.m. on January 6th, President Trump tweeted:

If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they