Trump can't block Mike Pence's Jan. 6. grand jury testimony, court says
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Donald Trump cannot block his former vice president from testifying before a grand jury investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The ruling helps clear the way for Mike Pence to speak under oath about the pressure Trump put him under to declare the 2020 election results invalid. While Trump could seek to further forestall that testimony by appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, other people in the president’s orbit have testified after similar losing battles in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The reasoning behind Wednesday’s order remains under seal; the decision was issued by a panel that included two Obama appointees and one Trump appointee.
Pence initially fought the subpoena himself, arguing that he was taking part in a congressional proceeding on Jan. 6 and therefore covered by protections for lawmakers. But when Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in D.C. ruled that the “speech or debate” clause would not cover illegal acts by the president, Pence agreed to testify. Trump then appealed on the grounds that his executive privilege prevented Pence from testifying, a position also rejected by Boasberg.
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That emergency appeal was denied Wednesday.
Pence’s former chief of staff and chief counsel have both testified to the grand jury already; both were present for a meeting where attorney John Eastman put forward the idea that Pence could throw out the election results and instead recognize “alternate electors” supporting Trump. But only Pence can speak firsthand about his conversations with the former president and his close advisers.
Pence, who is considering running for president in 2024, has in interviews repeatedly condemned Trump for tweeting in the middle of the Capitol attack that the vice president “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”
That “reckless” message “endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building,” Pence has said.
In his memoir, Pence also wrote that when he refused to endorse the claim that the election was stolen, Trump called him “too honest.”
The grand jury expected to hear Pence’s testimony is one of several investigating Trump. A state prosecutor in Georgia is expected to announce soon whether she will file charges in connection with Trump’s efforts to overturn President Biden’s victory in that state. And another grand jury in D.C. is investigating whether Trump illegally held onto classified information after leaving office.
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Source: The Washington Post
