Rudy Giuliani fired up a crowd in Washington, D.C., with a speech encouraging Vice President Mike Pence to pull an 11th-hour maneuver denying President-elect Joe Biden the certification of his Electoral College victory on Wednesday.
Delivering remarks to the “Save America Rally,” President Trump’s personal lawyer fanned claims of pervasive voter fraud with allegations that Democrats have been obstructive throughout the vote tabulation process.
“The Democrats and their allies have not allowed us to see one machine or one paper ballot. Now, if they ran such a clean election, why wouldn’t they make all the machines available immediately?” he said. “Who hides evidence? Criminals hide evidence, not honest people.”
Giuliani, who vowed to “stake [his] reputation” on the fact that wrongdoing will be revealed if the campaign’s requests are granted, argued that vice president wields the power to reject the vote of any elector whose legitimacy is questioned.
“It is perfectly appropriate, given the questionable constitutionality of the election-counting act of 1887, that the vice president [can] cast to the side, and he can do what a president called Jefferson did when he was vice president: he can decide on the validity of these crooked ballots, or he can send it back to the legislatures,” the former New York City mayor said, noting that five state legislatures, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, and one unnamed state, have written letters requesting such a delay.
Giuliani, who spoke before a scheduled address by Trump himself, called for a delay of 10 days to review the voting mechanisms, in line with what Sen. Ted Cruz and a group of fellow GOP senators have demanded. He acknowledged that the stakes are high and called for a “trial by combat” as he continues to lobby for access to ballots and voting machines.
“If we’re wrong, we will be made fools of,” he conceded. “But, if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail.”
Giuliani’s comments come as all eyes fall on the vice president, whose ability to reject electors remains in doubt. After the New York Times reported that Pence told Trump that he doubted he had the constitutional authority to try such a gambit, the president derided it as “fake news.”
“He never said that,” Trump said. “The vice president and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act.”
Pence is expected to preside over a joint session of Congress tasked with certifying the Electoral College’s vote in favor of Biden. While dozens of Republicans in both the House and Senate have signaled their intent to object to certification, the protest is unlikely to be successful due to the current composition of the legislature.
