CO-CONSPIRATOR:

Rep. Jim Jordan forwarded a text message to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on January 5, outlining a legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to stand in the way of the certification of the 2020 election. [...]

Three sources confirm to CNN that the full text that Jordan forwarded to Meadows included specific information about the legal theory and contained a word document that outlined the strategy.

The sources said the full message was:

"On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all -- in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence. 'No legislative act,' wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78, 'contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.' The court in Hubbard v. Lowe reinforced this truth: 'That an unconstitutional statute is not a law at all is a proposition no longer open to discussion.' 226 F. 135, 137 (SDNY 1915), appeal dismissed, 242 U.S. 654 (1916). Following this rationale, an unconstitutionally appointed elector, like an unconstitutionally enacted statute, is no elector at all."

The text from Jordan is another example of the intense pressure campaign put on Pence by Trump supporters to act on unproven legal theories as a last-ditch effort to prevent the certification of the election results. It was pressure Pence ultimately rejected.

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