Trump pushed Pence to reject key votes

On Jun 17, 2022

A demonstrator holds a mannequin wearing a noose with “Traitor” written on it during a protest at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021.

Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on Thursday put the spotlight on former Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to aid then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The committee’s third public hearing examined the intense pressure Trump and his allies heaped on Pence to reject key electoral votes when he presided over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, to confirm President Joe Biden’s victory. The hearing also focused heavily on John Eastman, a lawyer advising Trump who pushed the dubious legal theory that Pence held virtually unilateral power to overturn the election.

Here are the main takeaways from the hearing:

Pence’s life was in danger

Pence came within about 40 feet of some of the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol building, said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., who led much of Thursday’s hearing.

“Make no mistake about the fact that the vice president’s life was in danger,” Aguilar said.

He noted that a confidential informant from the Proud Boys told the FBI that members of the far-right group “would have killed Mike Pence if given a chance,” according to a recent court filing by the Department of Justice.

Pence did not leave the Capitol on Jan. 6, but was transferred to a secure location during the riot.

Pence showed “courage” on that day by defying Trump, committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said at the start of the hearing.

But that resolve put the vice president in “tremendous danger” when Trump “turned the mob on him,” Thompson said.

Trump, Eastman were told Pence couldn’t overturn the election

Witnesses, both in person and in taped depositions, testified that numerous officials told Trump and Eastman that Pence could not carry out the legal scheme to overturn the 2020 contest. But Trump and Eastman nevertheless continued to pressure Pence and his team.

Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, said in a taped interview with the committee that the vice president himself told Trump “many times” before Jan. 6 that he did not have the legal authority to block the certification of the election.

Former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said he had heard that former White House counsel Pat Cipollone “thought the idea was nutty and had at one point confronted Eastman with the same sentiment.”

Other officials also thought Eastman’s theory “was crazy” and would tell “anyone who would listen,” Miller said.

What’s more, former Pence counsel Greg Jacob told the panel that Eastman admitted one day before the Capitol riot that his legal theory would be rejected 9-0 if it went before the Supreme Court.

On the morning of Jan. 6, Trump raged at Pence in a tense phone call. He said the vice president was weak and a “wimp,” witnesses told the committee….