Rarely have we seen the American Vice President so disciplined. For four years, Mike Pence has been a monk soldier of Donald Trump, his finger on the seam of the pants, impassive despite the verbal excesses and condescension, of the “boss”.
Wednesday, January 6, the vice-president is subjected to a difficult exercise: will he defy the president or the Constitution of the United States? “I hope that our great vice-president will not disappoint usDonald Trump said on Monday, after speaking with him in the Oval Office. If he disappoints us, I will love him less. “
Donald Trump pressures
At stake: the attitude of Mike Pence in the official certification of the results of the November 3, 2020 election, the last step in the transition process before the nomination of Democrat Joe Biden on January 20. According to the XIIe amendment of the Constitution, it is the vice-president, who, in his capacity as president of the Senate, has the mission “Open all certificates” sent by states and read the results obtained in each of them (in alphabetical order, according to the Electoral Count Act of 1887). The ceremony takes place before a joint session of the two chambers of Congress. It is scheduled for January 6 at 1 p.m. in Washington (7 p.m. in Paris).
The exercise is sometimes cruel, when the vice-president must proclaim a result which consecrates his own defeat: like Al Gore in January 2001, beaten by George W. Bush by less than 400 votes. Or Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, in 1961, after his defeat to John F. Kennedy. But it generally occupies only the rank of formality. Al Gore, who hoped to succeed Bill Clinton, had the elegance to wish his opponent good luck, after having himself imposed silence on elected officials who protested: ” May God bless our new president. “
Not so with the current White House host. In his quest for anything that could allow him to stay there, Donald Trump has since December 2020 exerted more and more public pressure on his number two.
While constitutional scholars are unanimous in their reading of the role of the vice-president in certification, purely honorary – “Simply reading the score” – Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudolf Guiliani, managed to convince many elected officials, and without difficulty his client, that the speaker has the power to challenge the results. On Tuesday, the American president insisted on this point again: “The vice-president has the power to reject elected officials chosen fraudulently” he tweeted.
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