Lawrence O'Donnell mocks Mike Pence
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell ridiculed former Vice President Mike Pence for appearing on a "network you probably don't watch and haven't heard of" and claiming that he won his lawsuit trying not to appear before the grand jury.
The station was Newsmax, and Pence spoke to former Fox host Greta van Susteren, saying, "So, I — I can tell you — I'm pleased that the court accepted our argument and recognized that the Constitution's provision about speech and debate does apply to the vice president. But the way they sorted that out and the requirements of my testimony going forward are a subject of our review right now. And I'll have more to say about that in the days ahead."
Pence can spin it any way he wants, but it seems the court decided he must speak to the grand jury about what he and Trump discussed ahead of Jan. 6. The judge in the case agreed that a vice president has "some" protection under the "speech and debate clause."
"It is entirely possible when we see this ruling, if we do, that the judge really did not grant Mike Pence the ability to avoid answering any questions that the prosecutors actually want to ask him," explained O'Donnell. "All of the questions that we know prosecutors would want to ask are about conversations already reported in several books that Mike Pence had with Donald Trump in the White House or on the phone. None of those conversations took place inside the Capitol, which might be one of the ways that Judge James Boasberg is willing to consider the possibility that Mike Pence might be able to take some protection using the speech and debate issue about communication inside the Capitol. That phrase 'inside the Capitol' appears in The New York Times report of what the judge said about the speech and debate protection."
The way that Americans will know if the ruling doesn't become public, O'Donnell said, is that we will see Mike Pence walk into the courthouse to testify in a federal criminal trial of Donald Trump's. It will be difficult to explain how he "won" his case, but somehow still must appear before the grand jury.
See the comments from O'Donnell below or at the link here.
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