Rudy Giuliani told Trump that the Constitution gave Pence the authority to not certify the election, book says.

Donald Trump got the idea that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to single-handedly overturn the results of the election from none other than his former attorney Rudy Giuliani.

According to an excerpt from Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book, “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency,” obtained by the New York Magazine, aides around Donald Trump have started to distance themselves from him and his belief that Pence could overturn the election. That left only a small group of people around the former president including disgraced lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Wolff wrote that it was Giuliani who assured Trump that the Constitution gave Pence the authority to not certify the election.

Wolff said Giuliani, “was drinking heavily and in a constant state of excitation, often almost incoherent in his agitation and mania” in the lead-up to the deadly riot. Giuliani was obsessed with the idea that Pence could somehow preclude Congress from affirming President Joe Biden’s election victory, the excerpt said.

“There is no question, none at all, that the VP can do this. That’s a fact. The Constitution gives him the authority not to certify. It goes back to the state legislatures,” Giuliani said continuously on the phone to Trump and anyone else who would listen, Wolff wrote.

The Constitution does not give a vice president authority to send back electoral results to states for review. The role of the VP is purely ceremonial. Furthermore, Congress’ job in the process is just to count and affirm Electoral College votes submitted by states not to “certify” electoral votes.

Giuliani was suspended from practicing law in New York on Thursday for lying about the election.

“There is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020,” the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court wrote, according to ABC News.