[Alberta's Child]

I'm no fan of York, but on this one he's right. Under U.S. law and the 12th Amendment, there's no basis for Congress to reject any electoral votes unless two conditions are in place:

1. The electoral votes from one or more states are in dispute, AND ...

2. There are competing slates of electors certified by individuals or governing bodies (i.e., a legislature or a board of elections) from those states.

Condition #2 was not met in 2020 even though the disputes related to Condition #1 were legitimate.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

1. P1: The Deep State doesn't have to play by the rules

2. P2: We the people do have to play by the rules

Therefore, we are screwed.

[kiryandil]

Good and clear post, but we're beginning to see indications that Republican legislatures were in on The Steal.

ACTIVELY colluding with the national Democrat apparatus at the national and state level. This would bring the question of outright fraud into my mind, and as we know, fraud vitiates everything [US Supreme Court].

I'll have to see if Byron York addresses this issue in his article.

[one guy in new jersey]

What’s the harm in Pence focusing on four big swing states like PA, GA, MI, and WI, entertaining objections to the validity of the slate-selection election (election day) tallies based on the overwhelming stink of corruption arising from the city centers of those states, and send the envelopes back to those states demanding answers regarding what appear to be seemingly coordinated corruptions or irregularities common to all four states, such as unexplained cessation of vote counting when it appeared that Trump was winning, followed by middle-of-the-night resumption of counting resulting in people waking up to see that Biden had strangely seizing the lead in each such state literally overnight.

[nathanbedford]

As you say, " the disputes related to Condition #1 were legitimate."

When Congressman and Senators raise objection, the process requires adjudication by Congress. The January 6 hearings are an attempt to criminalize that constitutional process.

Similarly, the hearings are an attempt to criminalize varying constitutional interpretations. We did not even criminalize secession after the Civil War. In the sense that secessionists were not prosecuted for treason.

[Wayne07]

“1. The electoral votes from one or more states are in dispute, AND “

No they weren’t. No state failed to certify their election. There was a process to stop certification, or for a state to decertify, but it never happened. Eastman is a kook.

[griswold3]

Thank you!

[NNN]

Byron York has fallen a long way down since his great work for the original American Spectator exposing the Clintons decades ago. The article is garbage. John Eastman’s writings on the 2020 election process and its manifest, manifold un-Constitutional aspects were flawless. Skip the article and its shallow, misleading characterizations and read what Eastman actually wrote. You may be enlightened. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21066947/jan-3-memo-on-jan-6-scenario.pdf

“I have outlined the likely results of each of the above scenarios, but I should also point out that we are facing a constitutional crisis much bigger than the winner of this particular election. If the illegality and fraud that demonstrably occurred here is allowed to stand—and the Supreme Court has signaled unmistakably that it will not do anything about it—then the sovereign people no longer control the direction of their government, and we will have ceased to be a self-governing people. The stakes could not be higher.” - John Eastman

[wintertime]

Did the Founding Fathers intend for the system to be a conveyer belt of corruption?

[Political Junkie Too]

The day for Trump to drop his challenges was Dec. 14, 2020, when the Electoral College voted. But he did not stop.

York was wrong on this point.

The Electoral College voters in each state seal their votes and transmit them to Congress, to be opened in front of Congress on January 6. Legally, the actual results are not known until January 6. This means that President Trump had a window of opportunity up to January 6 to mount his challenge, not December 14.

There were two roadblocks to Trump:

1. No court was willing to hear his challenges.
2. No GOP legislatures were willing to take official acts based on their plenary powers (it's just not in their DNA to take controversial actions).

Regarding #1, that's the deep state in action.

Regarding #2, if Republican-controlled legislatures used the window of time between December 14 and January 6 to investigate and confirm election misconduct sufficient to throw the results in doubt, they could have voted to recall their original slate and send a second slate to Congress. There are provisions in US Code Title 3 to manage this.

This would have one of several effects, according to Title 3:

1. Congress will have received two slates, one recalled and one replacement.
2. Title 3 says that Congress should respect the most recent official slate that is received.
3. Congress still has the power to debate the case and choose the slate they want from the two slates they received (I think, but I wouldn't put it past Pelosi to do it regardless).
4. If the Democrat-controlled Congress votes to reject the replacement slate and approve the recalled slate, President Trump and/or the affected state legislature would be able to appeal to SCOTUS to argue that Congress acted unconstitutionally by usurping the state's power to choose their Electors. They would argue that Title 3 requires Congress to accept the state's replacement Electors.
5. SCOTUS would hem and haw, and in my opinion, defer to Congress (that is Roberts' DNA).

It may all be for naught in the end, but Trump would have had a path forward beyond December 14, contrary to what York believed.

-PJ