President Donald Trump’s efforts to influence the Electoral College certification hit a wall Tuesday after Vice President Pence has rejected a request from Texas Republican congressman Loui Gohmert and 11 pro-Trump Arizona electors to join their attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election.
Rep. Gohmert and the Arizona electors filed suit against Pence on Monday in an attempt to argue that the vice president has sole authority to determine which presidential electors Congress will count when it certifies the results of the election.
The far-fetched suit essentially asks the court to grant Pence the authority on Jan. 6 to overrule the results in swing states such as Arizona and have Congress count only pro-Trump electors instead of the ones President-elect Joe Biden won.
In new court filings made public Tuesday, the plaintiffs disclosed that they had reached out to Pence before filing their suit in an attempt to join forces but that their talks did not reach any kind of agreement, Politico reports.
“In the teleconference, Plaintiffs’ counsel made a meaningful attempt to resolve the underlying legal issues by agreement, including advising the Vice President’s counsel that Plaintiffs intended to seek immediate injunctive relief in the event the parties did not agree,” lawyers for Gohmert and the electors said in the filing. “Those discussions were not successful in reaching an agreement and this lawsuit was filed.”
Trump’s allegations of voter fraud and irregularities largely failed. Virtually all of the GOP cases were tossed in court for lack of evidence or standing.
