Some right-wing lawmakers in Pennsylvania signed on to President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss, and other Republicans say they would have felt pressured to sign on if they'd been asked.
State House speaker Bryan Cutler and House majority leader Kerry Benninghoff joined hard-right colleagues to call on Congress to block the state's electors for Joe Biden, and other GOP lawmakers are glad they weren't asked to sign, reported the New York Times.
“If I would say to you, ‘I don’t want to do it,’" said Senate majority leader Kim Ward, “I’d get my house bombed tonight.”
Ward, also a Republican, said the president personally asked her to declare there had been voting fraud in Pennsylvania, but she told the Times she had not been shown the hastily pulled together letter to Congress before it was released.
Biden won Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes, but Trump's attorneys have been unable to prove his claims of fraud in various legal challenges, but 64 Republicans signed a letter urging their congressional delegation to throw out the state's Electoral College votes.
Trump twice called Cutler in recent days, but a spokesman for the House speaker said the president “did not directly pressure Cutler to overturn the results or seat rival electors," but he instead signed the letter put together by other GOP members whose votes he needs to maintain his leadership post.
