Former Vice President Mike Pence, speaking for the first time since former President Donald Trump was indicted for his attempts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, emphasized that a vice president had no right to overturn the election results and that only a group of "crackpot lawyers" had told Trump otherwise.
Pence told reporters Wednesday at the Indiana State Fair that he had hoped the entire matter would not have come to an indictment, but he reiterated that he followed the law.
"I want people to know that I had no right to overturn the election and that what the president maintained that day, and frankly has said over and over again over the last 2 1/2 years, is completely false. And it's contrary to what our Constitution and the laws of this country provide."
Pence said that "the first time I heard in early December somebody suggest that as vice president I might be able to decide which votes to reject and which to accept, I knew that it was false … I dismissed it out of hand."
The former vice president added, however, that "sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear."
The indictment against Trump details how co-conspirators and the former president pushed the idea that the vice president could unilaterally reject or return electoral votes during the Jan. 6 certification, even though Pence repeatedly said he did not have the authority to do so.