Pence will have to testify about the conversations he had with Trump on January 6

A federal judge has ruled that former Vice President Mike Pence must testify to a grand jury about conversations he had with Donald Trump by Jan. 6, 2021, according to multiple sources familiar with a recent federal court ruling.

But the judge said — in a decision that remains undisclosed — that Pence could still refuse to answer questions related to his actions on Jan. 6 itself, when he was serving as Senate President for the certification of the 2020 presidential according to one of the sources.

The decision by Chief Judge of the US District Court in Washington, James Boasberg, is a major victory for Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the Justice Department investigation. Pence still has the ability to appeal.

Ahead of the Congressional certification vote, Pence faced enormous pressure from Trump and his allies to stop lawmakers’ plans to validate Joe Biden’s victory. As Senate President, Pence was tasked with chairing the certification process.

Trump’s conversations with Pence in the days surrounding the insurgency were of great interest to investigators investigating the attack.

Although Pence declined to testify before the January 6 House committee that investigated the insurrection, people close to Trump told the committee about a heated phone call he had with Pence the day of the attack, in which he hurled insults at his deputy. -president.

Pence and Trump did not speak during the attack on the Capitol itself, in which many of Trump’s supporters angrily sought him out, and Pence narrowly escaped the crowd heading to the Senate floor.

Nicholas Luna, Trump’s former special assistant, told the committee that he remembered Trump calling Pence a “coward.” Luna said he remembers something like Trump saying, “I made the wrong decision four or five years ago.”

And Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s former chief of staff, said she remembers Ivanka Trump telling her that “her father had just had a disturbing conversation with the vice president.”

Radford said she was told Trump called Pence “the P-word,” referring to a derogatory term.

For Pence’s part, many of his public comments about his conversations with Trump in the days before and after the insurrection came from a memoir he published last year.

In the book, Pence wrote that Trump had told him in the days before the attack that he would inspire the hatred of hundreds of thousands of people because he was “too honest” to try to overturn the election results.

The former vice president also said in the book that he asked his general counsel for a briefing on Election Count Act procedures after Trump in a Dec. turn. ”

Over lunch on Dec. 21, Pence wrote, he tried to convince Trump to take advice from the White House legal team rather than outside counsel, a suggestion the then-president rejected.

And Pence wrote that Trump told him in a phone call on New Year’s Day, “You’re too honest,” predicting that “hundreds of thousands will hate you” and “people will think you’re stupid.”

“Mr President, I do not dispute that there have been irregularities and fraud,” Pence wrote as he told Trump. “It’s just a matter of who decides, and by law, that’s Congress.”

Big Win for Special Counsel

Smith is investigating the Trump-aligned effort to subvert the 2020 election. He subpoenaed Pence for testimony and documents earlier this year.

Days after news broke of the subpoena, Pence and his aides indicated that the former vice president would contest the subpoena under the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, which protects lawmakers from certain law enforcement actions related to their legislative duties.

“I will challenge Biden’s Justice Department subpoena to appear before the grand jury because I believe it is unconstitutional and unprecedented,” Pence said at an event in February.

He suggested that — because he was also serving as Senate President during the Jan. 6 certification vote — the constitutional clause covered the conduct investigators are looking into.

The contest took place in secret in court.

Pence’s claims, as he has publicly described them, are seen as new.

His arguments drew criticism from a wide range of legal scholars, including former Justice Michael Luttig, a conservative legal luminary who publicly argued that Pence should certify election results.

Even as Pence fought the subpoena, he maintained his refusal to stop Congressional certification of Biden’s victory, as Trump asked him to do.