Vice President Mike Pence misunderstood the need to ratify the electoral votes requested of him by President Donald Trump last Jan. 6, according to constitutional lawyer and former Chapman University School of Law professor John Eastman.
LifeSite reported that Eastman pointed out Pence misrepresented what Trump was asking him to do during the certification of electoral votes in the Capitol last week.
On Pence being asked to unilaterally decide the results of the election, Eastman commented, "That's not what he was being asked; that's not what we asked him this morning, and that's not what the president asked him this morning."
"I think he's exaggerating what the request was," Eastman told WND.
Eastman referred to Pence acknowledging at the start of the Jan. 6 joint Congress the instances of electoral fraud but did not make a motion to have the votes sent back to their respective states as was previously advised him by the Trump legal Team.
"After an election with significant allegations of voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of this election," Pence said in the letter he read as his speech during the said Congress joint session.
"The American people choose the American President, and have every right under law to demand free and fair elections and a full investigation of electoral misconduct," he continued, "As presiding officer, I will do my duty to ensure that these concerns receive a fair and open hearing in the Congress of the United States."
"Objections will be heard, evidence will be presented, and the elected representatives of the American people will make their decision," he cleared.
Eastman explained, as per Life Site, that this "means we have several slates of electors that were illegally given."
"And what [Pence] had been asked to do is recognize that they had been illegally given and send it back to the state legislatures and allow them--and they're the proper constitutional authority in this instance--to allow them to assess the situation in their own states and decide whether they can ratify the existing slate of electors or whether they were fraudulently given and should be altered," Eastman elaborated.
However, during the same speech, Pence decided, "My considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not."
According to Forbes, Eastman actually tried persuade Pence of the latter's "power to delay Congress' certification" of former Vice President Joe Biden's "win" prior to Jan. 6 but to no avail.
Forbes revealed that Eastman recently left Chapman University after members of the faculty demanded the administration to fire him for joining the Save America Rally with Trump's private legal counsel Rudy Giuliani on stage.
Through a statement, Eastman said the faculty who petitioned him "have created such a hostile environment" that he "no longer wish to be a member of the Chapman faculty" and opted to retire from his position "effective immediately."
