Former House Speaker Paul Ryan called Vice President Mike Pence to remind him that he did not have the power to block the certification of Joe Biden's win.
According to testimony presented during a Thursday hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee, Ryan called Pence and Short to argue that he didn't have the power to overturn the election results.
I told Mike that Ryan wanted to call and say that he didn't have any authority. He doesn't. We laughed about it and he said he understood. Short said that he talked to the Vice President as well.
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Ryan and Quayle both said that Pence didn't have the power to change the outcome of the election.
Short said in his deposition that he thought he was proud to stand beside the president. He knew that his first and foremost oath was his fidelity to the constitution.
Ryan's reaction to Trump's effort to subvert his election loss is one of the only bits of evidence presented by Short. Ryan attended the inauguration of Biden in the weeks after the Capitol attack, even though he stayed quiet in the aftermath.
There was a split response from the Wisconsin congressional delegation.
Ryan made a rare campaign endorsement for a congressman who voted to impeach Trump. Rice did not win his primary race.
After Ryan criticized the rise of Trumpism in the Republican Party, the relationship between Trump and Ryan deteriorated into acrimony.
"If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or of second-rate imitations, then we're not going anywhere," Ryan said at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Voters are looking for Republican leaders who are independent. They won't be impressed by the number of men and women at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump referred to Ryan as a curse on the party.
As the select committee focuses on trying to stop certification, Wisconsin's ties to January 6 may become clearer.
Short's testimony was given in the third day of hearings. It has focused on the efforts to overturn the election.
A group of Wisconsin Republicans are pushing for the decertification of the 2020 presidential election, a move that is legally impossible. He met with Vos in April to try to convince him to support a resolution that would take Wisconsin's electoral votes.
The idea has been promoted by a Republican candidate for governor and the former Supreme Court justice leading a taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 election for Vos.
Molly Beck can be reached at molly. Beck@jrn.com. You can follow her on the social networking site.
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The article was originally published on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
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