Former Vice President Mike Pence was given a three-page memo from his counsel laying out the opinion that then President Donald Trump’s demand that he overturn the 2020 presidential election would be illegal, according to a new report.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance noted that the memo could be added to the growing pile of evidence against Trump.

via Twitter / @kyledcheney

Politico revealed the contents of the memo last weekend.

In it, Pence lawyer Greg Jacob wrote “… if Pence were to embrace Trump’s demand that he single-handedly block or delay the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, he would be breaking multiple provisions of the Electoral Count Act, the law that has governed the transfer of power since 1887.”

Jacob continued, saying  “… the Vice President would likely find himself in an isolated standoff against both houses of Congress … with no neutral arbiter available to break the impasse.”

“Donald Trump & Mike Pence” by Gage Skidmore is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Appearing on MSNBC, Vance called the memo damning for Donald Trump’s defense in the ongoing Jan 6th hearings, espectially as Jacob is scheduled to testify before the congressional committee on national TV later this week:

“So, the memo is a three-page memo, it is written in plain English and it is a great read for everybody who is following along. Because what it lays bare is the scheme that is being advanced by [Trump attorney] John Eastman and presumably President Trump is not within the confines of the law. It is very clearly illegal.”

She continues:

“Jacob does a really masterful job of walking you through the illegality and explaining why it is already been recently, at that point in time, contradicted by a ruling issued of the D.C. Court of Appeals very clearly stating that this proposal is illegal.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence via Flickr / Gage Skidmore https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

And concludes:

“Whether or not this memo was seen by the former president, we don’t know. But as all of the evidence accumulates, it becomes quite clear that Trump either knew or should have known that what he was proposing violated the law and that the big lie was just that, a big lie.”

Trump urged Pence to refuse to certify the electoral results on the advice of his attorney, John Eastman.

 

About Author

Christopher Powell