On Thursday (April 27), former Vice President Mike Pence appeared before the federal grand jury probing former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in power beyond the 2020 Election.
According to reporting by The Hill, which cites a “source familiar with the matter,” Pence spent several hours at a Washington courthouse, testifying before the Grand Jury.
The former Vice President’s testimony is a major step forward in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s conduct leading up to the 2020 election and the subsequent January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when rioters tried to prevent Pence and lawmakers from confirming President Joe Biden’s victory.
Pence has repeatedly insisted he had nothing to hide from investigators about the implications of the 2020 election, although he previously challenged Smith’s subpoena to testify in the case, arguing that his tenure as the Senate president effectively made him a member of the legislature on the day of the riots and therefore protected him testifying, under the Constitution’s “speech and debate” clause.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that Pence must testify about Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, although the judge agreed that Pence should not be compelled to testify about his role in Congress.
The former Vice President’s testimony is likely to give the grand jury more information about Trump’s conversations and behavior between the November 2020 election and January 6.
Trump spent that time repeatedly claiming that the election was fraudulent and suggesting that Pence had the unilateral power to deny electoral college results.
In his memoir, the former vice president detailed some of the conversations he and Trump shared in the weeks leading up to the insurrection, relaying how the former president repeatedly put pressure on him to reject the 2020 election results. Pence ultimately confirmed the results, saying the Constitution does not give him the unilateral right to override the will of the people.
