Will Trump play the #PenceCard December 23 (today)?
Thread: Absolutely not. The assertion that he will hurts our credibility and the cause because people who trust some accounts pushing it will be demoralized when it doesn’t happen. Let me explain:

2/ For this thread again, we will assume the Electoral Count Act of 1887 is Constitutional and binding. It very well may not be, but it doesn’t appear we have any court that will ever say so.
3/ The ECA is found in 3 USC 1-21. In secs 12 & 13, it requires that on the 4th Wed of Dec (that’s today) the President of the Senate (that’s Pence) to notify the states if he/she (or the Archivist) has not received a “certificate of vote and list” mentioned in sections 9 & 11.
4/ Sections 9 & 10 are merely administrative. Sec9 says that electors from the state make & sign six certificates of the votes w/ a lists for Pres & VP & attach a list of electors. Sec10 requires the electors to seal up the certificates & certify that the list of votes are inside
5/ The Pence Card is the idea that today, the VP can review & decide that the dem electors sent by AZ/NV/GA/PA/MI/WI don't meet the reqs of the ECA and/or the Const so, in effect, the VP hasn't received proper electors from the states & has a duty to notify them of that fact.
6/ Importantly, any notification to the state that the VP doesn’t have certificates can be cured. That’s the point of the notification – to get the certificates.
7/ The Act was written in 1887. The purpose of this provision is to make sure the wagon didn’t fall off the bridge with the certificates and, if it did, to “send a messenger” to get new certificates from the states. It isn’t to make legal decisions.
8/ If Pence does notify the states today (he won’t), he is also throwing out the republican electoral votes that were so painstakingly cast and that our state republicans are trying so very hard to get certified by state legislatures.
9/ Let’s look ahead to what the ECA says will happen in the future. It says on January 6 the votes will be opened by the VP. That means that the deadline today just means the envelopes are in hand. There will be no evaluation of the certificates or decisions of law made today.
10/ And what if Pence did this? How do you think many in our country & around the world would view a sitting VP single-handedly dismissing votes that would kick him out of office?
11/ I dare say this would be catastrophic. Now, the January 6 scenario is far different in terms of fallout IMO, but the Pence Card being played today would be a disaster.
12/ I want a Trump victory because I believe that is what the people voted for, but this isn't the way. We cannot destroy what we are trying to preserve.

More from Trump

Picking up on @henryfarrell's comments here, one implication of my work on democratic breakdown is that the US should harshly punish GOP leaders who attempted to keep Trump in power despite losing the election and fomented insurrection to advance that effort. 1/n


I wrote a book a decade ago that used game theory to explore the ways democracies die and what that tells us about how and why they sometimes survive. 2/n

One implication of the formal model in that book is that normative commitments to democracy may matter less than expectations about the benefits and costs of trying to subvert democracy. 3/n

It's great when all the major players (ruling party, opposition party, and military) believe democracy is good in itself. If they don't, tho, then what matters most are their beliefs about how easily they can seize power and how costly it would be to try and fail. 4/n

I think it's pretty clear that many key players in the GOP don't see democracy as a good in itself ("we're a republic, not a democracy"). So that shifts their attention to their ability to usurp power and the costs of trying and failing. 5/n
I missed that DOJ has posted the individual certificates listing what offenses Trump pardoned for each person listed in his January 19 master clemency warrant, which had names but didn't spell out the covered crimes. https://t.co/oL44VoCVbr
Here's Steve Bannon's, for example.


Here's Elliot Broidy, a Trump fund-raiser who admitted to a role in a covert campaign to influence the administration on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests.

https://t.co/tvpHORLrps


Here's Ken Kurson, a former Giuliani speechwriter and former editor of a newspaper Jared Kushner owned, who had been charged with cyberstalking
https://t.co/HxcexSK4Sc


Here's Aviem Sella, an Israeli who had been a fugitive from 1987 esionage and subversive activities charges related to recruiting a spy against the United States, Jonathan Pollard. (He was never extradited and pardoning him was a favor toNetanyahu.)

https://t.co/neHjN57ok3


Here's Dwayne Michael Carter a/k/a Lil Wayne, who had pleaded guilty to firearm offenses
https://t.co/yixm1fTR2b

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