Mike Pence keeps twisting the facts of the Trump charges — even as he runs against him

Former Vice President Mike Pence shouldn't have a reason to stick up for former President Donald Trump as he faces federal Espionage Act charges for hoarding classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort. On January 6, Trump incited a mob that chanted for his lynching. Pence is now running for president, making him a rival to Trump. And to top it all off, Pence himself faced a brief investigation and was cleared after accidentally retaining some classified information in his personal papers, and understands how serious the issue is.

And yet, wrote Will Saletan for The Bulwark, Pence is not only still defending Trump, but telling falsehoods about the case in the process.

"Pence knows firsthand that the department is making its decisions based on facts, not party. Yet he pretends the opposite," wrote Saletan. "Last week, after DOJ struck a plea bargain with Hunter Biden, Pence fretted that the department was practicing 'a two-tiered system of justice, like one set of rules for Republicans and one set of rules for Democrats.' Again, that insinuation was demonstrably false: Hunter Biden was prosecuted at least as aggressively as anyone else accused of the same crimes. And those crimes, which involved late tax payments and unlawful possession of a firearm, had nothing to do with classified records."

"On June 7, as reports circulated that Trump would be indicted, Pence spoke at a CNN town hall. The moderator, Dana Bash, noted that Pence, unlike Trump, had cooperated with the government in returning classified material. She asked Pence: 'Full cooperation. Do you see [Trump’s] case as different?'" wrote Saletan. But, "rather than concede her point, Pence pleaded ignorance and impugned DOJ’s fairness. 'I don’t know the facts of the former president’s case,' said Pence, straining credulity. 'What we have got to have in this country is equal treatment under the law.' He rebuked the feds for their search of Trump’s estate — 'There had to be dozens of ways that could have been handled, other than that kind of behavior' — leaving out the fact that Trump, unlike Pence and Biden, had exhausted the government’s patience by lying and stonewalling for a year and a half."

Pence also repeatedly made false claims about the investigation of a handful of classified papers accidentally mixed into Biden's personal effects, noted Saletan, claiming it took the FBI "80 days" to start a search, when in fact prosecutors opened an investigation within days and searched his private office within two weeks.

"Pence loves to talk about being a Christian and a constitutionalist," wrote Saletan, and yet, "Like so many others who defended and abetted Trump’s conduct in office, Pence has become marvelously adept at shading facts, peddling falsehoods, and smearing anyone who tries to hold Trump accountable. He just does it with extra piety."