Rachel Maddow explains how Mike Pence got thrown into the impeachment scandal by Trump’s lawyers
Vice President Mike Pence (left, via House GOP/Flickr) and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow (right, via screengrab).
October 23, 2019
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow noted that Vice President Mike Pence got thrown into the impeachment scandal by President Donald Trump's own lawyers.
In a bizarre comment in court a few weeks ago, has been revealed with the release of documents. Unfortunately for Pence, it happened again. Trump's lawyers debated with judges and opposing counsel whether Trump could, in fact, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and be prosecuted. The president's lawyers argued that not only could they not prosecute him, but they also couldn't stop him either.
But it was a key part of their argument that indicated Pence wasn't all that important.
"The country can persist without a vice-president. A president subject to proceedings in a state court, the distraction that would create, the multitude of problems that could arise are unique and different in both degree and kind from anything that would attend to proceeding against the vice-president," the president's lawyers said out of "thin air" according to Maddow.
"If you're Mike Pence, that flips your wig, right?" Maddow asked.
"I mean, that happened a few weeks ago in court and one of the cases about whether President Trump has to hand over his taxes," she said. "Mike Pence is like, 'Why did you guys say that?' Well then, today, it happened again. Again, it was apropos of nothing. Wasn't asked about. Nobody else in the courtroom was talking about the vice president and his potentially being subject to criminal indictment, but, again, President Trump's lawyer today just hauled up the specter of Mike Pence and volunteered to these federal judges, 'Oh! Him? Pence? Oh, yeah, he definitely could be indicted.'"
William Consovoy, the attorney for Trump, said, "...the vice president did not have this kind of immunity."
Maddow reinforced the fact that no one was even asking about the vice president.
"If you're Mike Pence, potentially legally exposed in the impeachment proceedings, after all, you're the guy who personally went and told the president of Ukraine to his face he wasn't getting that military aid," Maddow continued. "This is not a comforting pattern from the president's lawyers especially now that we know it wasn't just a glitch, it's something they're apparently going to push with every federal court that they're before."
Sadly, the moment was overshadowed by the fact that Trump's lawyers said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not be prosecuted.
Check out the quick segment below: