Mike Pence is no hero for stating the obvious
Former Vice President Mike Pence is getting roundly lauded for his bravery in standing up to his ex-boss Donald Trump. At a Federalist Society event on Friday, Pence expressly said Trump was “wrong” in asserting that as vice president, Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 election.
The former VP’s courage is being wildly overstated. It consisted of little more than restating a position he has already taken, and one he necessarily has to endorse if he is to have any running room to get to the presidency, an office to which he plainly aspires.
Here’s Pence’s grand declaration: “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.”
When Pence did his job in the wee hours of Jan. 7, 2021, certifying the Electoral College vote, his actions rebuffed Trump’s pressure campaign to violate the Constitution, which clearly limits a vice president’s role in a presidential election to opening the electors’ envelopes.
Pence said as much later, and just as expressly as he did on Friday. For example, in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network in December, he said, “From the founding of this nation forward, it’s been well-established that … the only role that Congress has is to open and count the electoral votes that are submitted by states across the country, no more, no less than that.”
It is true that at the Federalist Society, Pence added some bromides to his position. He called the very idea of a vice president overturning an election “un-American” (something he also said earlier on the Christian Broadcasting Network) and he called Jan. 6 a “dark day.”
Pence, no less than the leaders of the RNC, well understands that Trump’s claims of having been cheated out of the election are a crock.
Pence’s speech on Friday was far from a profile in courage. Call it rather a profile in political pragmatism. And a huge missed opportunity to do something truly brave for his country and party.
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Harry Litman writes for the Los Angeles Times.
