I read that during the January 6 attack the Secret Service agents wanted to get Pence into a vehicle and away from the Capitol for his safety. I read someplace that he refused this because he didn’t trust them to return him to the capitol so he could perform his duties. He was that suspicious of an attempted coup.
I think it would have worked. And I think Pence thought it would have worked. All he had to do is refuse some states and the whole thing is a mess (no one gets a majority). The Constitution provides for a remedy in that event, and the election goes to the House and Trump is re-elected. Everything appears enough “by the book” that the courts and military go along.
So, I think we have a combination of #1 and #2.
Somehow, I think it’s been a long, long time since Pence had a “happy ending”.
I think it’s all 3 of the OP choices, plus as mentioned, he’d be the fall guy after the dust settled. Four negatives to not equal a positive. The easier and less risky path was to go against TFG and just claim publicly to the RWNJs that he did not have the authority to do what was being asked of him - it’s not like they were going to check.
I think Pence didn’t want it to work. A powerful second term dictator/president Trump would just mean some more years of subjugation and no clear path to the presidency for Pence. (and a real chance of being cast aside on Trump’s whim) Trump losing would, in his mind, clear the way for him to be the 2024 nominee.
Of course, he neglected to factor in the taint of four years of Trump’s lackey would have with reasonable people, and his ‘betrayal’ of Trump would have on the crazies.
#2 but some of #1. Because Pence realized his job is to preside. If electoral votes were to be change that would be up to the House members and Senators to make the appropriate parliamentary maneuvers to do so … not him.
Agree completely.
There are many ways the last 2 and next 1-1/2 years could have / will play out. Pence could have found himself in a much stronger place today than he really does. And he might yet surprise us on the way to the 2024 nomination.
To the degree the nobody-but-Trump crazies are a spent force in R politics, Pence has a decent chance at saying what much of the rest of the Rs want to hear: “We all went temporarily nuts in 2016-2020, but we’re better now.” And saying it in the same way a recovered alcoholic can speak to the still-recovering: “I get it, I was there. We’re all better now. Come with me now to the promised land of sobriety.”
Especially contrasted with a White Supremacist-lite DeSantis campaign he might do well as a real Evangelical Establishment candidate.
I agree Pence being the 2024 R nominee is not the way to bet today. But that current trailing position was far from a sure thing as he was pondering his next move on before and during Jan 6. In a slightly different reality, he might have been the hero of Jan 6, not one of the goats.
The problem with this notion is, it seems a whole lot of people in the GOP are entirely self-deluded about the path their party is trying to follow. They don’t see it as them looking to install a dictator, they think they’re “Saving America”. If any of them really did care about the prospects of an American Dictator, even just in so far as it affects them personally, you’d think there’d have been at least some small amount of push-back on gerrymandering, voter suppression, “stop the steal” and all that.
I don’t think it’s a widespread notion. Pence, however, had a sideline view of the whole thing. He knew what Trump was (and is) and I have to believe he despised the man for a variety of reasons. But Pence was too ambitious to actually do anything to cross him, until January 6th, when he could just “do his job” and be done with Trump once and for all.
I don’t know, I suspect Pence is Lawful Evil. (He thinks, of course, that he’s Lawful Good.) And I suspect he wants a theocracy because that’s the Law he wants everybody to follow.
I think it was all three; with the comment that he may well have thought it was wrong because it was illegal – that is, if the Constitution had been written so as to clearly give him that power, he might have been fine with it. But I don’t see how a system of government could even work in that fashion; so he probably also realized, not only that the particular coup attempt wouldn’t work, but that the government would no longer work at all even if it did.
I think it was this. I think Pence is like the many Republicans who reportedly privately wish Trump would die or something, while publicly falling in line behind him. This was a pretty handy “or something” opportunity handed to Pence.
I think this was to establish plausible deniability so the blame didn’t stick to him when Trump didn’t stay in power.
Pence is a vicious, twisted man. This is a guy who wanted to force vaginal ultrasound probes into women who dared to disobey the biblical patriarchy. No wonder his wife was so bitter about him getting what he wanted. His whole thoughtful wise man routine truly sickens me.
I subscribe to this line of thinking, too.
We knew early on in 2016 that Pence has no aversion to lying when he lied to protect Mike Flynn for lying to the FBI, claiming he didn’t know that Flynn had lied to him. Pence was the chairman of Trump’s transition team, FFS. It defies belief that Pence wasn’t told of Flynn’s lies by then-acting AG Sally Yates at that point in time.
I think Pence didn’t do what Trump wanted for one simple reason: If he could assert such a claim, then so could any subsequent vice president. And he already knew Trump/Pence had lost the election.
Which basically falls under Categories 2 and 3.
Maybe I’m a Pollyanna but I reckon #1
Because he thought it was wrong, he asked for legal views which told him he shouldn’t do it because it was probably illegal.
If his legal advice was that the maneuver was probably legal, I think he still wouldn’t have done it.
There’s another factor, which is that it would simply make Pence look like a fool, and be instantly slapped down.
For Pence to publicly count the electoral votes in favor of Trump, when they obviously weren’t, would be like a Steelers-favoring referee announcing in front of a television audience of 150 million Super Bowl viewers: “Pittsburgh has just scored a touchdown, but instead of the usual six points, I’m going to award them twelve points instead.”
It takes immense gall and fortitude to expose yourself to that sort of national outrage and snickering. Pence didn’t have it.
But his boss did, and could not understand why others don’t, so expected Pence to do it, too.
He wasn’t asked to do that. He was asked to reject five states (or delay accepting them–same thing), so that no candidate would have the required votes and it would go to the House to decide the election. As I stated earlier in this thread, the plan would almost certainly have worked, despite huge objections from half the country.
It is curious. I have NO respect for Pence. Had the misfortune of living/working in IN while he was gov. But WRT 1/6, I pretty much assumes that Trump had simply asked Pence to take a step too far. Directly undermining a fundamental aspect of our government.
He’s proven himself very willing to push his personal agenda discriminate against diverse folk, but I’m not sure he has a record of doing so through blatantly illegal means. Instead, I see him as wishes to at least have an arguable cloak of legitimacy under which he can pursue his despicable goals.
So I vote a combination of 1 and 2, focussing more on 2.
OK, so it would have been Pittsburgh has just scored a touchdown, but I’m not going to count the points. In fact, I’m going to subtract six points from their score.
I’d like to think that he realized it would be an act of treason to do so, and that he was enough of a patriot not to do it.
I’d like to think that too. But I don’t.
As others have mentioned, Pence (and others like Barr) are very concerned with the legalities of the matter (and this would have been sedition: “treason” is specifically defined on the Constitution. Just upholding SDMB tradition here 
). They want to win, and even stretch the rules if they need to, but they care about legitimacy. If it’s clear that something would be flat out illegal and they won’t do it — and as mentioned earlier especially if it entails destroying rule of law so that in the future THEY will not have the protection.