Mike Pence resists role in plan to overturn election for Donald Trump on January 6

US Vice-President Mike Pence asked a federal judge in Texas to deny a Republican congressman’s emergency request for a court order that would essentially allow the vice-president to reverse Donald Trump’s election loss during a joint session of Congress on January 6.

Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas should have sued the US Senate or the House of Representatives if he disagrees with the established way that Electoral College votes are counted, Justice Department lawyers representing Pence said in a filing on Thursday.

“The vice-president – the only defendant in this case – is ironically the very person whose power they seek to promote,” the government said. “The Senate and the House, not the vice-president, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs.”

Gohmert argues Pence can hand Trump a second term by simply rejecting swing states’ slates of Democratic electors and instead choosing competing Republican electors when the Senate and House meet jointly to open and count certificates of electoral votes. Election experts have said such a finding would create a major conflict of interest.

The House asked for the judge’s permission to file its own brief, in which it argues Gohmert is trying seeks to “upend” Congress’s long-standing role in counting the votes of the Electoral College and invalidate the Electoral Count Act, which has governed the process since 1887.

“The House also has a compelling interest in ensuring that the public’s confidence in the processes for confirming the results of the 2020 presidential election is not undermined by this last-minute suit, which would authorise the vice-president to ignore the will of the nation’s voters,” House lawyers said in the request.

In another filing Thursday, Colorado elector Alan Kennedy argued Gohmert’s lawsuit is based on flawed legal arguments and debunked claims of election fraud.