(breitbart) – Vice President Mike Pence reportedly told President Trump Tuesday that he does not possess the power to block the certification of the election — a remark that followed Trump asserting the vice president, who is presiding over Wednesday’s joint session of Congress, has the “power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.”

According to a report from the New York Times, Pence reportedly told Trump “he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said.”

The report follows an earlier tweet from the president, who said that the vice president “has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors”:

Congress will formally count the Electoral College votes on Wednesday. Objections from at least one lawmaker in both the House and Senate would trigger debates in both chambers — a phenomenon that is expected to happen, with over 100 GOP members of the House and over a dozen GOP senators signaling their intention to object to electors in disputed states.

Per the Times:

When the results from all of the states have been considered, Mr. Pence, who as vice president also serves as presiding officer of the Senate, will be called on to read out the Electoral College votes for each candidate, formalizing Mr. Biden’s victory.

…

Mr. Pence has spent hours with parliamentarians and lawyers in recent days. His allies said they expect him to carry out his constitutional duties on Wednesday.

If Mr. Pence were for some reason unable or unwilling to carry out his role as president of the Senate, that role would fall to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, the chamber’s longest-serving Republican member.

However, Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, said on Saturday that the vice president “welcomes the efforts of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people,” noting that Pence shares “the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities.”

“Some have speculated that the vice president could simply say, ‘I’m not going to accept these electors,’ that he has the authority to do that under the Constitution,” Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow said this week, adding “I actually don’t think that’s what the Constitution has in mind.”

“If that were the case, any vice president could refuse any election,” Sekulow said. “It’s more of ministerial procedural function.”

Pence, during a campaign rally in Georgia on Monday, told the crowd that “come this Wednesday, we’ll have our day in Congress. We’ll hear the objections. We’ll hear the evidence.”

breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/05/report-vice-president-mike-pence-does-not-believe-he-has-power-to-block-congressional-certification/

(breitbart) – The House of Representatives rejected an objection to the Pennsylvania electoral votes early Thursday morning.

The vote failed 138 – 282 after two hours of floor debate in the House of Representatives over an objection to the certification of the electoral votes by Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). Sixty-four Republicans joined Democrats to oppose the objection.

At one point in the debate, members of Congress almost came to blows after Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) disputed a comment from Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA) Harris tried to raise a point of order to strike the comment from the record but it was dismissed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“The truth hurts!” Lamb continued after Harris protested.

Earlier Thursday, the Senate rejected the objection in a 7-92 vote without debate.

The proceedings continued all night Wednesday and early Thursday after it was delayed by about six hours after supporters of President Donald Trump swarmed into the Capitol to disrupt the proceedings, as Breitbart News reported.

After law enforcement cleared the building the hearings resumed.

The House also rejected an objection to Arizona’s electoral votes with a vote 303-121 late Thursday.

The joint session of Congress is expected to resume shortly to continue the certification process of the 2020 election.

breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/07/house-of-representatives-rejects-objection-to-pennsylvania-electoral-votes-138-282/

(informationliberation) – Disturbing new footage has emerged showing a Capitol police officer shooting unarmed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt at point-blank on Wednesday in Washington, DC.

You can see the officer looked right at her before pulling the trigger.

WATCH:

Even leftists are saying this was a horrific crime which should be aggressively prosecuted:

Here’s additional angles of the shooting:

MSNBC aired footage of her being carried out on a stretcher covered in blood:

Ashli Elizabeth Babbitt, 35, was a wife and a 14-year veteran who served four tours with the US Air Force and worked as a high level security official throughout her service.

“Her husband says she was a strong supporter of President Trump, and was a great patriot to all who knew her,” KUSI reported Wednesday.

informationliberation.com/?id=61990

(informationliberation) – Patriots packing a flight from Salt Lake City to Washington DC on the way to the “Save America Rally” were filmed chanting “traitor” at Republican Senator Mitt Romney on Tuesday.

“Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!” the crowd chanted. “Resign Mitt! We want to know your connection to Burisma and Joe Biden, Mitt Romney!”

WATCH:

Another woman confronted him while in the airport:

Gotta love it!

informationliberation.com/?id=61981

(breitbart) – President Donald Trump challenged Sen. Tom Cotton Monday after the Arkansas senator said he would not join Republican colleagues in opposing certification of the electoral votes on January 6.

“How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “You will see the real numbers tonight during my speech, but especially on JANUARY 6th.”

Trump appeared angry at Cotton for choosing not to join a growing group of Senate Republicans who would oppose the certified electoral results in select states.

Cotton argued that Senators opposing the results of the 2020 Electoral College would “establish unwise precedents” in future elections.

“[O]bjecting to certified electoral votes won’t give him a second term—it will only embolden those Democrats who want to erode further our system of constitutional government,” Cotton wrote in a statement explaining his decision.

President Trump warned that Republicans would not forget Cotton’s choice, while senators like Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Marsha Blackburn announced their intentions to object to the vote certification.

“Republicans have pluses and minuses, but one thing is sure, THEY NEVER FORGET!” he wrote.

The president also described the group of Republicans unwilling to contest the election as the “Surrender Caucus” and warned of the consequences of their actions.

“The ‘Surrender Caucus’ within the Republican Party will go down in infamy as weak and ineffective ‘guardians’ of our Nation, who were willing to accept the certification of fraudulent presidential numbers!” he wrote.

breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/04/donald-trump-challenges-tom-cotton-how-can-you-certify-wrong-election/

(breitbart) – President Trump spoke to 300 state legislators from the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia on Saturday in a Zoom conference call hosted by Got Freedom? in which the 501 (c) (4) non-profit election integrity watchdog group urged those lawmakers to review evidence that the election process in their states was unlawful and consider decertifying the results of the November 3 presidential election.

President Trump addressed the call for 15 minutes at the invitation of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who now serves as the president’s personal attorney, and was one of the featured speakers on the call.

Other featured speakers included Chapman Law School Professor John Eastman, Dr. Peter Navarro, Assistant to the President for Trade and Manufacturing (appearing in his personal capacity), John Lott, Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of Justice (also appearing in his personal capacity), and Liberty University Law School Professor Phill Kline.

Kline, a former attorney general in Kansas, is a spokesperson for the 501 (c) (4) Got Freedom? non-profit, and also serves as director of the 501 (c) (3) Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, an election integrity public interest law firm which is engaged in litigation regarding the 2020 election.

In a press statement released after the call, GotFreedom? said they conducted Saturday’s “exclusive national briefing . . . at the request of state legislators from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to review the extensive evidence of irregularities and lawlessness in the 2020 presidential election.”

“A similar briefing is being scheduled in Washington, D.C. at the request of Members of Congress,” the group noted.

A joint session of the newly convened 117th Congress will meet in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to determine if they will accept the results of the December 14 meeting of the Electoral College, in which Joe Biden received 306 Electoral College votes for president and Donald Trump received 232 Electoral College votes.

If at least one member of the House of Representatives and one member of the Senate object to certifying those votes on Wednesday, each chamber must then separately hold a debate on whether to accept those Electoral College votes.

More than 30 members of the House have already announced they will object to certification. Last week, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) announced he will publicly object to certification.

Then on Saturday, as Breitbart News reported, 11 Republican senators said they would vote not to certify on Wednesday and would instead recommend the establishment of a commission to review the lawfulness of the election process in the disputed states in a full election audit. That commission would have ten days to review the evidence and report back to the joint session of Congress.

“This information should serve as an important resource for state legislators as they make calls for state legislatures to meet to investigate the election and consider decertifying their state election results,” Kline, who hosted the call on behalf of Got Freedom? said.

“The integrity of our elections is far too important to treat cavalierly, and elected officials deserve to have all relevant information at their disposal as they consider whether to accept the reported results of the 2020 elections, especially in states where the process was influenced by private interests,” Kline added.

The statement continued:

The evidence discussed includes unprecedented public-private partnerships that created a two-tiered election system in the states that determined the winner of the Electoral College. Funded by over $400 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, these public-private partnerships sought to boost turnout in Democratic strongholds while depressing turnout in conservative areas, violating constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection.

The private monies paid the salaries of election workers and funded the purchase of election equipment, but came with strict conditions on the conduct of elections in jurisdictions that accepted the money. These private interventions were aided by the actions of public officials, who sought to undermine transparency, fought efforts to audit the results, threatened legislators with investigation and prosecution for questioning the reported results, and in some cases even physically prevented state lawmakers from entering the Capitol Building in order to prevent them from challenging election certification.

A communication sent to participating state legislators after the call summarized Professor Eastman’s argument during the call about the specific “Constitutional imperatives” of state legislators.

State legislators, Eastman stated, have both the right and duty to:

• Assert your plenary power
• Demand that your laws be followed as written
• Decertify tainted results unless and until your laws are followed
• Insist on enough time to properly meet, investigate, and properly certify results to ensure that all lawful votes (but only lawful votes) are counted.

In that subsequent communication, Kline encouraged the state legislators to:

… agree to sign on to a joint letter from state legislators to Vice President Mike Pence to demand that he call for a 12-day delay on ratifying the election, allowing the states the necessary time to further investigate the lawlessness with which the presidential election was conducted. We also request that you send this message out to fellow legislators to ask them to sign on to the letter as well.

He added that “Representative Daryl Metcalfe (R-Pennsylvania), Senator Brandon Beach (R-Georgia), and Representative Mark Finchem (R-Arizona) already wrote a letter to Vice President Mike Pence for this narrow purpose. Coming together to sign a joint letter is a vital step—one you should take confidently and in solidarity. We will send the joint letter to all legislators who contact us in reply to this message.”

The 1,400 pages of evidence presented to state legislators on the call can be seen at got-freedom.org/evidence/

breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/03/president-trump-joins-call-urging-state-legislators-to-review-evidence-and-consider-decertifying-unlawful-election-results/

(breitbart) – President Donald Trump and a list of other high-profile speakers will address “Stop the Steal” protesters on Wednesday, Jan. 6, ahead of an effort by some congressional Republicans to challenge the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, Breitbart News has learned.

Thousands of Trump supporters are expected to gather in Washington, DC, for the occasion, and members of Trump’s team have been brought in to help organize the event which is officially being hosted by Women for America First.

The main event will happen on the Ellipsis at the White House—informally called “the President’s Lawn”—a source familiar with the organizational efforts said. The president tweeted Sunday morning that he will be there on Wednesday.

The president is expected to deliver remarks beginning at around 11 a.m. He will cap off an event at which several other high-profile names, including his eldest son Donald Trump, Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Amy Kremer, Rudy Giuliani, Katrina Pierson, Boris Ephsteyn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Diamond and Silk, Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones, Roger Stone, Benny Johnson, Scott Presler, Bernie Kerik, and Ali Alexander are all among those expected to speak, per a source involved in the matter.

Many of these speakers, and others, will also speak on Tuesday, Jan. 5—the day before the official festivities—at an event at Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington, DC. But the main event is on Wednesday, at the Ellipsis at the White House.

The doors for the White House Ellipsis event will open at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, and while event-goers will not need to formally enter White House grounds through a White House gate there will be Secret Service checkpoints on the way in. Technically, event-goers do not need to register or have tickets, but are being encouraged to RSVP on the website MarchtoSaveAmerica.com.

The official program will begin around 9 a.m., and again will be capped by Trump’s speech beginning around 11 a.m. When the president finishes his remarks, organizers then will lead a march up to the U.S. Capitol where they are expected to arrive around 1 p.m.—the time during which the new Congress, which is being sworn in on Sunday, will consider certification of the electoral college results.

More than a hundred House Republicans are expected to challenge the certification of the electoral college results, and they will be joined by at least a dozen Senate Republicans. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) was the first one to announce he would join House GOP challenges last week, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) led an effort this weekend of 11 more Senate Republicans to join the cause.

With numbers like this, the effort is by far the most serious in modern history to challenge, via the process of Congress certifying the electoral college results, an election. There have been other attempts, like after Trump’s win in 2016 in early 2017 some House Democrats tried to challenge the results but did not get a senator on board with their challenge. Also, in early 2005, some House Democrats joined with then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to challenge then-President George W. Bush’s re-election. That effort failed, as vast majorities in both chambers of Congress rejected it.

This effort is similarly expected to fail, as the Democrats control the U.S. House so despite the impressive showing of more than 100 House Republicans siding with Trump he will fall short of a majority in that chamber. Similarly, some Senate Republicans—ranging from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—have said they recognize Biden as the legitimate president-elect and will not go along with this effort.

Therefore, given that the Senate GOP majority is tight—currently 52 members, which may change depending on what happens in Tuesday’s runoff elections in Georgia where Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) face Democrats Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff respectively—there are already not enough votes for Trump to even get a majority in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Nonetheless, the success of those cheering this challenge on in getting as many members of Congress as they have gotten on board this fight—even if it is doomed to fail no matter what—is remarkable. It also resembles the anger and fury of the GOP base in the wake of the Nov. 3 contest, and signals that Trump base voters are seeking fighters in the future for the party. But it is also a tough balancing act for GOP leaders, as they seek to show the base they are willing to fight but also attempt to move forward with the reality of an incoming Biden administration that is fast-approaching in just a couple weeks.

The U.S. Senate has not started holding hearings for Biden’s cabinet picks, and may not start until after the inauguration. A large part of what will determine Biden’s administration post selections’ fates looms in Georgia on Tuesday, as those runoffs will ascertain which party controls the U.S. Senate for the foreseeable future and could mean the difference between some of Biden’s selections getting confirmed or not.

But the energy on the right as evidenced by the thousands of Trump supporters who months after the election will still descend on Washington, DC, this week is something Republicans will seek to harness in the future as they go into battle with the incoming Biden administration and as they seek to retake the House majority in 2022 after winning unexpected gains in the 2020 congressional elections.

Ultimately, too, this will all culminate in the 2024 White House battle, with what is expected to be a huge field of potential contenders bidding for their shot at Trump’s mantle, assuming he doesn’t run again which is no foregone conclusion.

breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/03/president-trump-to-address-stop-the-steal-protesters-on-white-house-lawn-on-january-6/

A 60-year-old Republican state senator from Virginia has died from coronavirus complications, the senator’s office confirmed Friday night, according to reports.

Sen. Ben Chafin of Lebanon in Russell County died earlier in the day after spending the past two weeks being treated at VCU Medical Center in Richmond, WRIC-TV of Richmond reported.

Several state lawmakers posted tributes to Chafin on social media.

“Amanda and I are heartbroken to learn of the passing of our dear friend Senator Ben Chafin,” Republican state Sen. Todd Pillion wrote. “Ben loved life, his family, his work, and the people of Southwest Virginia, for whom he advocated tirelessly.”

“So sad to hear of the passing of our friend and colleague, Senator Ben Chafin,” wrote Republican state Delegate Israel O’Quinn. “It’s a hugfe loss for SWVA and for his family and we all need to keep them in our prayers.”

Chafin, a native of Virginia, had served in the state Senate since September 2014 after previously serving in Virginia’s House of Delegates.

On Saturday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) reacted to Facebook suspending a Republican ad campaign by stating that the action “continues to highlight the absolute, essential nature of reforming Section 230.” And that “big tech has influenced and interfered with the 2020 race, and we’re going to have to address that.”

Hice said, [relevant remarks begin around 3:30] “[T]he issue with the big tech continues to be a serious problem. Unbelievable that they would pull those ads four days before an election. It continues to highlight the absolute, essential nature of reforming Section 230. There is no doubt big tech has influenced and interfered with the 2020 race, and we’re going to have to address that.”

(breitbart) – CUMMING, Georgia — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suggested at a campaign event Saturday that anyone telling voters to boycott the general election results by refusing to vote in Georgia’s Senate runoff election on January 5 has a “different agenda in mind.”

Cruz, speaking to reporters after appearing at the event for incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) Saturday morning, commented on the issue of voter fraud just before he and several other senators and senators-elect released a statement announcing they would object to the electoral college results on January 6, the day Congress is expected to certify those results.

The statement cited “unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities” in the presidential election and called for an emergency ten-day audit to “restore faith” in democracy.

In his remarks to reporters, Cruz said:

Look, I’m angry about the abuse of power that we’ve seen. Voter fraud is a real problem. It’s a persistent problem. It’s a problem in Georgia and across the country, but the answer isn’t to stay home and hand control of the government over to the radical left and over to the extreme socialists.

Cruz said those “pushing the theory that conservatives should stay home on Tuesday — they’ve got a different agenda in mind. They want the hard left to take over this country.”

Among those who have encouraged Georgians to sit out voting are two attorneys, Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, who told attendees at a press conference December 2 that they should not vote in the upcoming election until state leaders fix the alleged issue of voter fraud. Wood later reportedly told the New Yorker that “hundreds of thousands” of Georgians “are not going back to the polls” out of disgust for the Georgia GOP. Wood, specifically, has a history of supporting Democrats, as Breitbart News reported, although he claims to be Republican.

Cruz, by contrast, said he has found conservatives are eager to vote. “I’ve got to tell you, every conservative that I know is committed to standing up and fighting to defend our rights, and the anger you feel, let me encourage you to channel it into fighting to save the Senate and save America,” Cruz said, adding:

I think the stakes are that great, without exaggeration. These two Senate races in the state of Georgia I believe are the most important Senate races of our lifetimes because the gulf between what would happen with a Chuck Schumer radical Democrat Senate versus keeping it as a Republican Senate is massive.

During the event, while speaking to a large crowd gathered in the Good ol’ Days Bar and Grill parking lot, both Cruz and Loeffler quoted a variation of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) celebratory remarks when media declared Joe Biden president-elect: “Now we take Georgia, then we change America!” Schumer said on November 7.

Cruz warned that “the radical left intends to go after and try to take away our right to free speech. They intend to take away our religious liberty rights. They intend to take away the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. We’re not gonna let them do that.”

He concluded, “I think the common sense of the good men and women of Georgia is going to pull this country back from the brink and is going to protect and preserve our liberty.”

breitbart.com/2020-election/2021/01/02/watch-ted-cruz-believes-folks-pushing-theory-to-not-vote-in-georgia-have-a-different-agenda-in-mind/