Donald Trump has slammed an attempt by Senate Democrats to limit the power to challenge election results which he urged his vice-president Mike Pence to invoke last year.
The former president laid into his opponents on the "Unselect Committee of political hacks, liars, and traitors" on Tuesday after two rival draft reform bills to the 1887 Electoral Count Act emerged this week.
Trump said the move vindicated his assertions that Democrat Joe Biden only won the November 2020 presidential election thanks to widespread ballot fraud.
He said the motive of the bills — one backed by Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins — was "so that a Vice President cannot ensure the honest results of the election, when just one year ago they said that 'the Vice President has absolutely no right to ensure the true outcome or results of an election'."
"In other words, they lied, and the Vice President did have this right or, more pointedly, could have sent the votes back to various legislators for reassessment after so much fraud and irregularities were found," Trump said.
A "discussion draft" was unveiled on Tuesday by independent but Democrat-allied Maine Senator Angus King (I-Maine) Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois.
It would amend the law to state explicitly that the VP's role in certifying the electoral college votes was only ceremonial — which constitutional pundits say the existing act already does.
Meanwhile another group of 16 senators led by Collins and West Virginia's dissident Democrat Joe Manchin met on Monday night to discuss their proposal, and will reconvene on Friday to examine progress on a draft.
There is little love lost between Collins and Trump. She opposed the property tycoon's 2016 run for the presidency and refused to say how she voted in 2020.
On Sunday Collins told ABC News it was "very unlikely" she would support his heavily-mooted third bid for the White House in 2024. That was after Trump slammed senators "like Wacky Susan Collins" for trying to amend the 1887 legislation.
Trump also pinned blame for the January 6 occupation of the US Capitol building — as Congress, presided over by Pence, certified the state-by-state results — on his rivals.
"If it were sent back to the legislators, or if Nancy Pelosi, who is in charge of Capitol security, had taken my recommendation and substantially increased security, there would have been no 'January 6' as we know it!" he wrote on Tuesday.
"The Unselect Committee should be investigating why Nancy Pelosi did such a poor job of overseeing security and why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval, in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so!" Trump stormed.