NEW YORK (AP) — Mike Pence fought the Justice Department in court to try not to testify against his former boss, but now the former vice president is playing a central role in a new federal indictment unsealed Tuesday outlining the first criminal charges. against Donald Trump in connection with his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 US election.
The 45-page indictment is based, in part, on notes from that time that Pence kept about their conversations in the days leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill, in which Trump tried to pressure Pence to support his desperate — and illegal, according to prosecutors — plan to keep both men in power.
Among the discussions is an episode in which Trump allegedly told Pence that he was “too honest” for rejecting false claims that Pence had the power to overturn the election. “In conclusion … (I) won every state by hundreds of thousands of votes,” Trump stated in another conversation, according to the indictment.
Pence, who is among a large group of Republicans now competing with Trump for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, has spent much of his fledgling campaign defending his decision to disobey Trump. He launched his run with a strong denunciation of his two-time running mate, saying that Trump had “demanded her to choose between him and our Constitution. Now the voters will face the same choice.”
Still, Pence said last month that he did not believe Trump had broken the law in connection with the January 6 events, and has repeatedly questioned the Justice Department’s motives for investigating him.
On Tuesday night he said again that he believes Trump is unfit to run for president again.
“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself above the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” he said in a statement.
“Our country is more important than one man. Our Constitution is more important than any man’s career,” he said.
At a campaign stop Wednesday at the Indiana State Fair, Pence, a former Indiana governor, said he had been “hopeful it wouldn’t get to this point” but believed he had done “his duty ” that day.
“Unfortunately the president was surrounded by a bunch of nutty lawyers who kept telling him whatever his eager ears wanted to hear,” he declared. “Eventually the president continued to demand that I choose him over the Constitution.”
Despite what used to be his prominent position as the second-highest-ranking official in the Trump administration, Pence has struggled to generate enthusiasm for his presidential campaign. Many of the former president’s most loyal supporters still blame him for Trump’s defeat, believing Trump’s false claims that Pence could have used his ceremonial role as overseer of the Electoral College vote count on Jan. Democrat Joe Biden became president.
On the other hand, Trump’s critics blame Pence for being complicit in Trump’s most controversial actions and for staying by his side for many years. Until the day of the insurrection, Pence had been an extraordinarily loyal defender of his former boss.
With just three weeks to go before the first 2024 Republican presidential debate, it’s unclear if Pence will even qualify to take the stage. He still hasn’t met the minimum number of donors required by the Republican National Committee, but he told donors during a phone call Wednesday that he expects to reach that mark in the next seven to 10 days.
“We’re really encouraged by the progress we’re making… We’re not there yet, though,” he said, before encouraging supporters to ask friends and family to contribute. His campaign manager, Steve DeMaura, said that as of Wednesday morning, Pence had more than 30,000 donors and was adding an average of 1,000 new names each day.
In Washington, Pence had refused to testify before the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack, rejecting the inquiry as politicized. And he defended himself against a subpoena requiring him to testify before a grand jury, arguing that because he was serving as president of the Senate on January 6, he was protected under the constitutional “speech or debate” clause from being compelled. to testify. The objective of this clause is to protect congressmen from questions about official legislative acts.
Pence ultimately complied with the order when a judge refused to block his appearance, but said he would not be forced to answer questions related to his role as Senate president.
Trump’s lawyers had also objected, citing concerns of possible infringement of executive privilege.
The new indictment of Trump outlines the frantic attempts by him and his allies to stay in power. After initially trying to convince state legislators to refuse to certify Biden’s victory, they focused on what was going to happen on January 6 and “attempted to get the vice president to use his ceremonial role in certifying fraudulently altering the results of the elections”.
They tried to convince him to accept bogus voter lists or to reject the Electoral College votes from the states and send them back to state congresses for further review, the indictment alleges.
Those attempts were accompanied by a series of phone calls in late December and early January, including on Christmas Day.
“You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome,” Pence said during a phone call with Trump, the indictment states.
In another, on New Year’s Day, Trump rebuked Pence, telling him, “You’re too honest,” an episode Pence also recounts in his book “So Help Me God.”
Some of Trump’s claims were considered dangerous to Pence. During a private meeting on January 5, Trump “got frustrated” with Pence, telling the then-Vice President that he would have to criticize him in public. Concerned for Pence’s safety, his chief of staff, Marc Short, alerted the head of the Secret Service bodyguards guarding Pence.
The indictment also outlines how Trump worked to falsely convince his supporters that Pence had the power to overturn the results.
Immediately after their last conversation before the riots, on the morning of January 6, the indictment alleges that Trump revised the speech he was to deliver in Ellipse Park, “reintroducing words that he had personally drafted hours before that tomorrow — falsely claiming that the vice president had the authority to send Electoral College votes to the states — but that his advisers had successfully advocated for their withdrawal.”
In his speech, Trump repeated his false claims of voter fraud and again gave his supporters false hope that Pence had the power to change the outcome.
Soon after, hundreds of Trump supporters were pushing their way through barricades, clashing with police and storming the Capitol, some of them chanting “hang Mike Pence!” while the vice president and his family were rushed to safety.
Even after the rioters were driven from the Capitol and Congress reconvened to certify the results, Trump allies continued to pressure Pence, emailing his lawyer urging him to seek a further postponement by lifting the ban. session for 10 days.
Instead, Pence certified the election results, concluding his and Trump’s defeat.
