Bombshell news report indicates 'Pence will testify' against Trump: legal expert
A new report about Mike Pence's internal struggle over certifying the 2020 election is raising new questions about whether the former vice president will help bring down Donald Trump in the federal investigation.
According to the ABC News report, as late as Christmas Eve 2020, Pence was saying he wouldn't attend the Jan. 6 proceeding, apparently leaving Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to plan to preside over the count.
The revelations came from testimony ABC News reported Pence gave to special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump's role in the Jan. 6 uprising and attempts to overturn the election result.
MSNBC host Ali Velshi, substituting for Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday, pointed to part of the ABC report saying that special counsel Jack Smith's questioning of Pence got so far into the weeds that they debated the placement of a comma in his memoir. The placement reportedly makes it clear that Pence testified that Trump knew full well that he had no power to flip the election on Jan. 6.
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"I think substantively this has come out in various other testimony, but to me, the big news here is that this story says former Vice President Pence is going to testify in a criminal trial against the person who he served when he was vice president, the former President of the United States," said former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal.
He called it a "big deal" for Smith's case as it progresses forward in federal court. But he then bashed Pence for staying quiet on everything he knows for the past three years.
"I mean, the guy tried to launch a coup as the sitting president, and another guy, Pence, is witness to all this, and that witness dribbles out various things over the last three years? I mean, it's not as bad as Trump, but it's of the same ilk," said Katyal.
"When it comes to the 2020 election, you can stand on the right side of history or stand by Donald Trump, and Mike Pence has been acting like these aren't mutually exclusive. The story to me today says, absolutely, they are. Take one."
Tim Heaphy, lead investigator for the House Select Committee that investigated the 2020 election and Jan. 6 attack, said that the recent report didn't have much in it that he didn't already know.
"It is more interesting anecdotes that reaffirm the core principle, which is that Mike Pence was among a chorus of people who told the president repeatedly he lost the election, and there was no legal path forward," explained Heaphy.
"This sort of internal struggle that he had and deliberations as to whether or not he should or shouldn't sit out the joint session — people go through lots of scenarios when they're trying to make hard decisions. He arrived at the right place."
See the full discussion in the video below or at the link here.
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