Donald Trump has pressured his vice president Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election despite being told multiple times that doing so is illegal, a congressional committee has testified.
Members of the bipartisan panel of inquiry attack on the US Congress was told Thursday that Pence had made clear his opposition to the former president’s plan to block confirmation of election results, including in a phone call on the morning of January 6.
However, Trump continued to insist that Pence could and could refuse to certify the election, helping to incite the crowds that stormed the US Capitol after Pence announced he would not do so.
Pete Aguilar, a Democrat, said: “Despite the fact that the vice president has consistently told the president that he does not have and will not want the power to determine the outcome of the presidential election, Donald Trump continues to pressurize. vice president, both publicly and privately. ”
The hearing, the third in a series of public sessions, focused almost exclusively on the vice president’s role before and during the January 6 attacks.
Members showed how Pence refused to bow to pressure from Trump’s failure to certify the results, even after he had to evacuate the Capitol building when a mob of the president’s supporters stormed to demand action. decide him. Aguilar revealed that some of the rioters were within 40 feet of the vice president when he was evacuated.
“We are blessed with Mr. Pence’s courage,” said Bennie Thompson, chair of the Democratic committee. On January 6, our democracy came dangerously close to disaster. That courage put [Pence] is in great danger”.
In the weeks leading up to January 6, Trump was advised by John Eastman, a constitutional scholar, that the vice president had the power to simply overrule the outcome during a session of Congress that day.
Others around the former president vehemently protested. Eric Herschmann, one of Trump’s lawyers, called the idea “completely insane”, arguing that it would lead to street riots.
Herschmann said he told Eastman at the time: “You’re going to go back and tell the more than 78 million people in this country that your theory is this is how you’re going to invalidate their vote because of you. thought the election was stolen. ”
“They won’t stand it,” I said. “You will cause riots in the streets,” he added.
Witnesses say several others on the former president’s legal team agreed, as did his chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Greg Jacob, one of Pence’s former legal advisers, told the committee that even Eastman acknowledged in private conversations that the US Supreme Court would vote against the theory by a margin of 9 -0 if it goes to court for trial.
Members also saw evidence suggesting that in a draft letter to Trump written in October 2020, Eastman himself refuted the theory, arguing: “Nowhere [in the constitution] does it suggest that the president of the senate [the vice-president]decide for yourself. “
They also heard that it was Pence who decided from the outset that such an attempt would be illegal. Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, said he made his position clear that “he wouldn’t want that power given to anyone.”
Pence repeated his stance in a phone call with Trump on the morning of January 6.
In response, Nick Luna, Trump’s former personal aide, said Trump had called Pence a “fool.” Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s former chief of staff, said the former president’s daughter told her her father used the “p-word” about his vice president.
Even after that call, Trump continued to insist that Pence could overturn the election and his frustrations with his vice president helped incite the crowds that later stormed the Capitol building, the members argue.
The commission played video of rioters shouting “Mike Pence Cave” after he announced he would certify the results.
Michael Luttig, a judge who also gave Pence legal advice at the time, argued that if the vice president accepted Trump’s demands, it would plunge the country into a constitutional crisis. .
“Donald Trump’s proclamation as the next president will plunge America into what I believe would be tantamount to a revolution in a constitutional crisis in America,” he said.
In one Video preview During the hearing, Herschmann recalled telling Eastman the day after January 6, “Find an effective criminal defense attorney, you’ll need it.”
The committee also revealed that Eastman emailed Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s lawyers, days after the attack to ask for a presidential pardon.
