Trump admits for the first time he wanted Pence to 'overturn the election' during the January 6 joint session and slams VP for not 'exercising his power'

 Former President Donald Trump suggested Sunday night that he wanted Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election when the vice president chaired the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote count on January 6. 

Trump pointed to efforts on Capitol Hill to change the Electoral Count Act, including firming up the language to make clear that the vice president is only there to count votes and can't override the will of the voters. 

'Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away,' Trump claimed. 'Unfortunately, he didn't exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!' 

Former President Donald Trump suggested Sunday night that he wanted Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election when the vice president chaired the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote count on January 6

Trump pointed to efforts on Capitol Hill to change the Electoral Count Act, including firming up the language to make clear that the vice president is only there to count votes and can't override the will of the voters

Former Vice President Mike Pence made clear that he didn't believe he had the power to pick from slates of electors when he chaired the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 to count the electoral votes for president of the United States 

Trump had argued, 'If the Vice President (Mike Pence) had "absolutely no right" to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?' 

Collins, a Maine Republican, is part of a bipartisan group taking a look at making changes to the Electoral Count Act, which dictates how disputes over the vote count are handled. 

Trump's statement comes after CNN reported that Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other Trump campaign officials oversaw efforts to assemble alternate slates of pro-Trump electors, hoping Pence would choose to count their votes on January 6 instead of the legitimate Electoral College members. 

In the run-up to the vote count, Pence sent out a statement saying publicly that he didn't believe he had the power to pick and choose from slates of electors.    

The morning of December 14, when electors met in state capitals around the country, Trump adviser Stephen Miller previewed the plan. 

George Conway, the anti-Trump lawyer husband of former Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway, took to Twitter to mock Trump's understanding of the law

'As we speak, today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we're going to send those results up to Congress,' Miller said on Fox & Friends that morning.   

'This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open,' Miller continued. 'That means if we win these cases in the courts, we can direct that these alternate electors be certified.'

On Friday, the January 6 select committee subpoenaed 14 people involved in the scheme to send fake certifications of the electoral vote to the National Archives. 

The committee said that people tried to falsely declare Trump the winner in seven swing states, which were won by now President Joe Biden. 

'The Select Committee is seeking information about attempts in multiple states to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including the planning and coordination of efforts to send false slates of electors to the National Archives,' said the committee's chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson. 'We believe the individuals we have subpoenaed today have information about how these so-called alternate electors met and who was behind that scheme.' 

Thompson added that the 'existence of these purported alternate-elector votes was used as justification to delay or block the certification of the election during the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.'  

George Conway, the anti-Trump lawyer husband of former Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway, took to Twitter to mock Trump's understanding of the law.  

Conway said 'The Twelfth Amendment and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 already make it entirely clear that the Vice President merely opens the envelopes.' 

'But sometimes we want to make laws even clearer so that even semiliterate psychopaths have a chance of understanding them,' Conway added.