Former Vice President Mike Pence testified on Thursday to a federal grand jury in relation to the Trump investigation. Now you might be thinking, which one? Former President Donald Trump has definitely surpassed everyone when it comes to all the investigations he has faced; however, this one is related to the outcome of the 2020 election. This case investigates whether Trump tried to overthrow the results and overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. And Mike Pence, his Vice President at the time, has just been obligated to testify. This is the first time in modern history, according to CNN, that a vice president has been asked to testify about the president he served.
Vanity Fair reveals that Trump tried to stop Pence from taking the stand, and Pence himself also tried to avoid testifying. His testimony had been sought after for months, and in the end, the law has the last word.
The testimony of Mike Pence was necessary in the case due to an infamous private phone call on January 6, when Trump pressured Pence to block the 2020 election’s result. Pence was asked to retell his direct conversations with the former President: “A federal judge previously ruled Pence could be compelled to recount conversations the two men had where Trump may have been acting corruptly”.
Sources say that Mike Pence testified for over 5 hours, and while it’s not clear what was said, Pence insists that it is nothing but the truth, and refers to his memoir written in 2022: “We’ll obey the law, we’ll tell the truth. The story that I’ve been telling the American people all across the country, the story that I wrote in the pages of my memoir…that will be what I tell in that setting, as well.”
His supposed refusal to take part and give in to Trump’s corruption-filled demands on January 6 is something he constantly showcases as part of his campaign for the presidential nomination of 2024.
How Trump insists on remaining in the 2024 race despite all of the investigations and indictments is flabbergasting to me. However, maybe at some point history will, as Pence wrote in his memoir, hold him “accountable”.
