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Pence’s participation in the meeting is significant because he will preside over the joint session of Congress that will count the electoral votes that day. Brooks said Pence attended “different parts” of the meeting.
Brooks told CNN Monday night that they would seek to contest the election in at least six battle states, saying he needs to coordinate “up to 72” five-minute speeches that Republican lawmakers would make that day. “That is an important task,” he said.
The effort is doomed to failure, but it would create a spectacle that Senate Republican leaders want to avoid. And if a member of the House and a senator oppose the results of six states, there would be at least 12 hours of debate, in addition to the time to cast votes on each of the motions, which could prolong the fight until the next day.
The White House meeting, Brooks said, was to discuss “how serious the election fraud and theft was” in November, even though such claims have been rejected by election officials and courts across the country.
Brooks said the meeting was attended by a “double-digit” number of lawmakers, but did not say whether senators were part of the meeting. Brooks said the group had a separate meeting with Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani. And the Alabama congressman also said he saw Sidney Powell, the lawyer whose election conspiracies have piqued Trump’s interest in the White House. But, she said, they didn’t meet her.
Other Republican lawmakers also confirmed their attendance at the meeting, including Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, who told CNN: “We talked about a lot of things.”
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, a staunch Trump advocate, had this to say when asked if Trump urged him to object to the election results at the meeting: “He didn’t urge anything, he didn’t need it, I’ve been planning to object all the time. weather “.
Rep. Jody Hice, a Republican from Georgia who attended the meeting, tweeted: “I will direct an objection to Georgia voters on January 6.”
Sources told CNN that other members were there, including Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a prominent ally of the president who has been urging him to continue the battle.
While House Tories have virtually no chance of succeeding, it would put many Republicans in an awkward position. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his top lieutenants have urged senators not to join the House Conservatives because then they would be forced to cast a vote that would have them choose between Trump and the will of the Senate. voters.
But several senators did not rule out joining the effort, including Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rand Paul of Kentucky. And Trump has praised incoming Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville for noting he would object to the results.
“It seems like a long way from January 6,” Marshall told CNN when asked if he would join the effort.
In joint session, any member of Congress can object to the results of a state. All it takes is a member of the House and a senator to challenge the voters of a state, and the House and Senate must stop the joint session to deliberate separately on the matter for two hours and vote whether to exclude the results. of the disputed state.
“In a general sense, how we seem to be heading, it looks like we’re going to file valid objections to the number of states on January 6,” Brooks said. “And we will probably know sometime on January 7, after all the speeches and voting have been made, what the results of the Electoral College are.”
Brooks added that no one in the House Republican leadership has discouraged him from taking these steps, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has yet to formally recognize Biden as president-elect, despite that McConnell has. In a Republican conference call last week, McCarthy was asked about the Jan.6 meeting, but he dodged the question to focus on the Covid-19 aid talks, participants said.
Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the whip of the House minority, has also failed to acknowledge Biden’s victory. And when asked by CNN whether members of the House should challenge the results of the January 6 election, Scalise did not discourage them from doing so. Instead, he pointed to how objections were raised during George W. Bush’s victories, as well as in 2016 during the Trump presidency.
But in those past races, defeated presidential candidates have already relented, while Trump has been actively trying to reverse an election he lost.
“If any Republicans did it, it’s clearly not the first time it’s done,” Scalise said Monday. “All the Republican presidents in the last three terms have been objected to by the Democrats.”
CNN’s Ali Main contributed to this report.
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