Anchor Chuck Todd said, “So he’s just disputing the version of, events you’re describing.”
Lauro said, “No, not at all. He’s substantiating it in this respect, there were some preliminary discussions along the lines that Vice President Pence described, but the ultimate ask which was done at the ellipse was to pause the voting for a period of time. Now, issues like this get discussed and thrashed about all the time, but the ultimate call made by President Trump was to ask for a pause. If you read Vice President Pence’s book, he agrees completely with President Trump that there were these anomalies, discrepancies, even fraud in the election. Vice President Pence wanted those debated in Congress. President Trump asked that they be debated at the state legislature so you had a disagreement there, but once again, these constitutional and statutory disagreements don’t lead to criminal charges.”
Lauro added, “One thing that Mr. Pence has never said is that he thought President Trump was acting criminally. Indeed, Vice President Pence is an attorney. If he at any point said or thought that Mr. Trump, President Trump was acting unlawfully or contrary to criminal law, he would have said that. No one ever suggested that.”
Todd said, “He said the President asked him to violate the Constitution, which is another way of saying he asked him to break the law.”
Lauro said, “No, that’s wrong. A technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law. That’s just plain wrong. And to say that is contrary to decades of legal statute.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Editor’s note: This post has been updated.
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