Rightly or wrongly, Pence was the last chance at preventing the certification yesterday by sending the Electoral Vote counts back to the state legislatures in question and seeking reconfirmation.
There was apparently some disagreement of the constitutionality of this move, I agree, but counsel to the President--Rudy specifically, and others--believed it was a valid course of action...and so did the President.
Pence could have argued his case to the President and told the President ahead of time what his action was going to be...but he didn't. Instead, he betrayed the President by surprise and in public.
That's cowardice.
Pence also betrayed the Trump legal team. They were blindsided by his move last night.
I have to disagree with your assessment that Pence was a coward, I just read his 3 page letter to Eastman and the President. Mr. Pence stated that he will “do his duty to ensure these concerns receive a fair and open hearing”, which is exactly what took place.
While I don’t like the result of this, the plain English writing of Amendment 12 and US Code simply do not support any other path for the President of the Senate to take.
Since Rudy and Eastman are supposedly experts maybe they can explain why they never took any action concerning the last sentence of the 12th Amendment.” But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
An old saying is “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, sadly it appears the Trump team did just that.