WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors investigating former President Donald Trump’s actions before and during his mass attack on the Capitol will have access to key evidence after his former vice president opted not to enter a plea to avoid testifying.
Mike Pence adviser Devin O’Malley said a judge’s ruling agreed with him on the key issue Pence opposed in his role as Senate president on Jan. 6. “After reaffirming this principle of the Constitution, Vice President Pence will not appeal the judge’s decision and will comply with the subpoena as required by law,” O’Malley said.
Pence had initially said he would fight to overturn the US Supreme Court grand jury subpoena if necessary. But a week ago, he said he was “delighted” that James Boasberg, the chief judge of the US District Court in Washington, DC, agreed with his argument that the Constitution’s “speech and debate clause” it applies to his role as president of the Constitution. The Senate.
Prosecutors’ main interest in Pence’s testimony, however, is not in his dealings with members of Congress. Rather, in his interactions and conversations with Trump and his advisers, who for weeks have urged him to use his role as president at the January 6, 2021 election certification ceremony to give Trump a second term, even though he had lost his candidacy. for the re-election of Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump tried to claim “executive privilege” to prevent Pence from disclosing that information, but Boasberg rejected that argument in his still-sealed ruling.
It is unclear whether Trump will appeal Boasberg’s decision to bar Pence from testifying. Trump’s staff did not immediately respond to a HuffPost inquiry, but his lawyers filed a similar appeal a week ago in an attempt to bar other top White House aides, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, from being forced to answer questions in front of the sea. jury. The appeal was dismissed on Tuesday.
Norm Eisen, a former Obama administration White House lawyer who worked with House leaders on Trump’s first impeachment over the Ukraine racket, said Pence’s testimony will be “of the utmost importance” to special counsel Jack Smith.
“He is a critical first-hand witness to Trump’s statements during the coup attempt,” Eisen said. “The most important testimony Pence has to offer begins Dec. 5, when Trump first floated the idea of challenging him in the Electoral College, and continues through Jan. 6.”
While Boasberg’s ruling, according to Pence and others, says Pence is not required to disclose his interactions with members of Congress, it does not prevent him from discussing Trump and other executive officials.
“Pence will probably have to testify about anything that isn’t his official duty before Congress on the 6th, so all those conversations will probably be put on the line,” Eisen said.
Trump and his inner circle began planning to use fraudulent lists of Trump “voters” long before the Electoral College met on December 14, 2020 to ratify Biden’s victory. Indeed, that same morning, Trump’s senior White House adviser, Stephen Miller, appeared on Fox News and bragged about how pro-Trump lists of “surrogate” voters were being chosen as he spoke, so that Congress had competing slates in key states, bypassing Trump’s allies. the possibility of a second mandate.
Trump and his aides began lobbying Pence to agree to the plan in early December and stepped up their efforts after Christmas, according to former Pence aides and testimony revealed during the Jan. 6 committee hearings.
The pressure campaign culminated in Trump’s Jan. 6 speech before the riot outside the White House, where he again called on Pence to do what he asked, even though Pence had already told Trump he had no constitutional authority to do so thing. That afternoon, Trump attacked Pence for not having the “guts” to do what Trump wanted, and his mob responded by storming the Capitol.
Four of Trump’s followers died on January 6, as did five police officers in the following days and weeks. Another 140 officers were injured, and the Justice Department is indicting more than a thousand rioters, with at least hundreds more expected.
Despite this, Trump is again running for president and currently leads his rivals for the GOP nomination in the polls. And while he initially denounced those who committed violence on January 6, he has more recently embraced their actions and promised to pardon them if elected. At a recent rally, he even showed a Jan. 6 recording of inmates — the vast majority accused of assaulting police officers — chanting “The Star-Spangled Banner,” interspersed with Trump’s reading of the Pledge of Allegiance.
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