In his first comments since Monday night’s indictment of former President Donald Trump on 13 counts related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, former Vice President Mike Pence reiterated that the election was not stolen.
“Despite what the former president and his allies have said for now more than two and a half years and continue to insist… the Georgia election was not stolen and I had no right to overturn the election on Jan. 6,” said the former vice president emphasized while speaking in front of a large gathering of state lawmakers meeting in Indianapolis at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Pointing to his former running mate, Pence said “no one is above law.”
“And the president and all those implicated are entitled to the presumption of innocence,” he added.
The indictment from federal prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia accused the former president of “knowingly and willfully join[ing] a conspiracy” with a large group, including some of his former top aides, “to change the outcome of the election.”
Georgia was one of a half dozen states that President Biden narrowly carried to defeat Trump’s 2020 re-election bid.
On Tuesday, hours after Trump was indicted for the fourth time this year, the former president claimed he had evidence showing “election fraud” in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election and teased that he would share details at a news conference on Monday.
The move by Trump prompted conservative Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia — who certified the 2020 election in his state against the then-president’s wishes — to push back against Trump’s unproven claims.
“For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward — under oath — and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor,” Kemp wrote on social media.
Pence noted those comments from Kemp on Wednesday, as he reiterated that he had no right to overturn the 2020 election in his constitutional role as vice president overseeing congressional certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.
“And I’ll always believe by God’s grace, I did my duty that day to see to the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this country,” Pence said to applause.