Panic Mode: VP Harris Trots Out Jan. 6th
The real story resides in the abrogation of the Electoral Count Act of 1887
Vice President Kamala Harris just rolled out her desperation ploy today, flanked by over 100 RINOs (Republicans in name only) in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania—a park commemorating the site where, on Christmas night 1776, General George Washington, head of the Continental Army, and his troops, crossed the ice-cold Delaware River and changed the course of history.
It was on this site that she brazenly asserted that President Donald Trump sent up “an armed mob to the United States Capitol” on January 6, 2021, to try and thwart “the will of the American people.”
Whereas she has an unblemished record, she said, “Donald Trump… violated the oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and… if given a chance will violate it again.”
“Donald Trump lost the 2020 election,” she said. “And, he refused to accept the will of the people and the results of a free and fair election.” Then came the mob. He even “threatened the life of his own vice president. And, he refused to engage in the peaceful transfer of power. Were it not for the courage and patriotism of Vice President Pence that day, Donald Trump might have actually succeeded in overturning the will of the American people…”
Besides the fact that Kamala Harris’s record is not unblemished—case in point being her failure to invoke the 25th amendment when Pres. Joe Biden’s cognitive difficulties were so obviously intruding on his ability to execute his duties, but had no scruples about using it to toss Biden aside so she could grab the golden ring of the Democratic presidential nomination—her statement is full of fallacies.
A mere fraction of the hundreds of thousands who came out on Jan. 6 to support Pres. Trump and his contention that it was in fact the counters and their count that did not reflect the will of the people, went up to the Capitol.
And, yes, a few got unruly, some enticed by non-Trump actors.
That, of course, is not what President Trump wanted. He urged those in the audience around the Ellipse who so desired to go up and let their voices be heard to do so “peacefully and patriotically.”
To disrupt the proceedings inside was the last thing he wanted.
That’s why he requested National Guard Troops in the days before Jan. 6, to keep the peace, as needed, a request that was rebuffed.
Meanwhile, where was Vice-President Elect Harris on Jan. 6?
All the reporting indicates she was not at the Capitol, as she regularly asserts including during the September 10th debate with Pres. Trump, where she should have been as Vice-President-Elect overseeing the proceedings. Rather she was at the Democratic National Committee, where a live pipe bomb was found, and later removed, some speculating it was a backup plan in case mayhem did not break out at the Capitol to stall the proceedings.
An interesting theory, given that the Electoral Count Act of 1887, by which President Trump and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill had every right and, indeed duty, to send back slates of electors to the states in question, including Pennsylvania and Arizona, to ensure that the count was correct.
When the Capitol went into lockdown around 2 p.m., given the mayhem outside, and the proceedings to certify the electors were shut down, the Republicans were right on the verge of securing ten days to ensure the count was correct, by sending the slates back to the states where the U.S. Constitution says the authority for overseeing elections resides.
But, because the proceedings were shut down, when officials met later that night and the certification of elector slates resumed, they went into emergency session which gave them the opportunity to abrogate the Electoral Count Act of 1887, and Vice President Mike Pence chose to set aside the act’s provisions and certify the slates.
But let’s be clear. Pence had the constitutional authority according to the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to send the problem slates back to the states and, had he done that, he would have been adhering to the U.S. Constitution even more faithfully because, by ensuring the slates were accurate, or not, as the case may be, domestic tranquility, which the Constitution says is the fundamental duty of government, would have been enhanced.
So when Vice President Harris tries to demonize Trump and canonize Pence, she is wide of the mark of what constitutes being faithful to one’s oath to the Constitution.
Now, as for the noose for Pence, that was a dramatization of what happens to those who violate their oath to the Constitution in a serious matter. It was not for real. It was meant to underscore the seriousness of adhering to the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which Republicans were on the verge of effectuating, thereby saving, not trampling on the Constitution. And, if it wasn’t adhered to, that is treasonous. The penalty for treason in the most serious of matters? Hanging! (Obviously not now, but back in the day, it was a horse of a different color. Just ask Mary Surratt.)
And, do you know why the Electoral Count Act of 1887 was enacted to begin with? Because, in 1876, in the Civil War’s wake, four slates of electors were deemed tainted, the highest ever, and so Congress created this stopgap measure, which was not adhered to in 2020. When (with seven slates in question) it really counted!
Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was just published. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, is being published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.