On Wednesday, former Vice President Mike Pence told NBC News that he's "spoken extensively" and written about the Jan. 6 incident, but he is unwilling to cooperate with the Justice Department and testify to the grand jury under oath.
"It's different than going under oath," Vaughn Hillyard said to Pence.
"Well, no," Pence protested. "The Justice Department has been involved in an extensive fact-finding effort and in my judgment, this principle of separation of powers is that important."
Pence's claim is that as the president of the Senate, he is protected by the "speech and debate clause." Legal experts disagree with Pence because as the vice president, he's a member not of the legislature but of the executive branch. The Justice Department is also in the executive branch, thus there is no separation of powers issue.
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"If we were to exceed to accept a subpoena for an appearance before a grand jury or a trial I believe that would diminish the privileges enjoyed by any future vice president, be that Democrat or Republican," Pence told Hillyard.
Speaking about the exchange Thursday, Georgia lawyer and former state senator Michael Moore explained that the speech and debate clause protects someone in Congress from being forced to testify about the regular business of doing their job as a legislator.
"He's claiming he was president of the Senate, and by that designation, should be protected from having to give testimony," said Moore. "It's a pretty cowardly move if you ask me. It's hard for me to think that people think you can only be a patriot when you're getting publicized and paid to do it, and so here they simply are asking about information that he may have received at the time that he was in consultation with Trump, not at the time he was presiding over the Senate."
There's certainly an argument to be made, but that doesn't mean it's correct, as Moore explained. He cited former President Richard Nixon who tried the same move when talking about immunity and privilege when they were subpoenaing the tapes around Watergate.
"You can't hide," said Moore. "You can't use the law and protections that are given in the law as a shield to commit crimes. And so this testimony may be necessary. You know, again, it may be the type of thing where they exclude and maybe they reach an agreement to exclude some information. But to suggest that somehow he's standing on principle is a laughable joke at this point given what he knows. I'm not surprised to see it. We are in unchartered waters, but the whole last administration was uncharted waters. We had love letters with dictators. Here we have the FBI searching presidents' and former presidents' homes. The whole thing that's gone on in the last administration. It will be an interesting task for the court, and that's where it's going to head."
See the attack below or at the link here.
Georgia lawyer blasts Pence as a cowardwww.youtube.com
