Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that he has not yet made a decision on whether to testify at Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation.
Pence was spending the day doing three times in Iowa — the state that will hold its first presidential caucus — and was asked about Tuesday’s ruling by federal Judge James E. Boasberg, who said he had to testify at the inquest.
He can appeal the verdict.
“I have nothing to hide,” Pence said Tell correspondents, answering questions at his first stop in Urbandale, near Des Moines. “I have written and spoken at length about that day.”
“We will assess the best way forward and announce our intentions in the coming days,” the former vice president added.
At his second stop of the day, a lunch at Cedar Rapids Country Club, reporters asked Pence if he had been in contact with former President Donald Trump as he decided what to do.
“I’m going to talk to my lawyer about the best way forward and I’m just going to talk to my lawyer,” Pence said.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that he has not yet made a decision on whether to testify at Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation.
He was pleased with the ruling because Boasberg allowed Pence some protection because he was serving as Senate President while he presided over the joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 election on Jan. 6.
I can’t say much about this and the issues before the grand jury today, but I can tell you that I’m very pleased that the federal judge agreed with our position that the speech and debate clause of the Constitution extends protections to the vice president when I serve as president of the Senate,” Pence told reporters at CEDAR. Rapids.
“But how the court sorted that out and the extent of those protections, we’ll focus on that this week when we decide on the next steps,” he added.
Pence’s ire comes after he hounded Trump over the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol earlier this month at the Gridiron Dinner in D.C.
President Trump was wrong. “I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone in the Capitol that day, knowing that history will judge Donald Trump,” Pence said.
A reporter pointed to this quote and then asked why, then, Pence shouldn’t divulge everything he knows.
“If you’ve read my book, if you’ve listened to the speeches and interviews I’ve given over the past two years, you’ll know that I believe the American people deserve the whole story,” Pence said. “And I have shared that truth with the American people, and I will continue to do so.”
But Pence said that “just as on January 6” there were “significant constitutional issues” at stake.
But I agree with you, the American people deserve to know the story. I’ve told that story and I think as time goes on – people know we have nothing to hide, I’m proud of what I did that day, and I think we did what was right under the Constitution and in the service of the nation,” he added.
Speaking to a luncheon rally in Cedar Rapids, Pence also repeated the point that he does not have the power to overturn what states have sent him for ratification, pointing out to the Republican crowd that it was the Democrats who, wrongly, tried to nationalize the election.
As Pence blasted Trump’s Jan. 6 turn, he criticized Manhattan Attorney General Alvin Bragg’s investigation into the Stormy Daniels scheme.
Wednesday, Politico reported That the grand jury attached to the investigation would have run for a month, a previously scheduled hiatus, which would keep the threat of an indictment hovering over former President Donald Trump’s head in the presidential campaign cycle.
Pence had told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that Bragg’s investigation was on “politically charged” and “not what the American people want to see”.
The various investigations into Trump were not main fodder at the brunch Pence attended in Iowa.
In both, the former vice president attempts to humanize himself, telling small crowds about how he moved home to Indiana and bought a John Deere tractor.
John Deere is based just across the Mississippi River from Davenport, Iowa, and so there is a sense of pride about it in the Hawke State.
Pence said he now has grandchildren and has earned that nickname “Bob.”
Karen’s wife goes to “Kiki” by the grandkids – and she even has a license plate with her nickname written on it.
He even gave old funny stories about his time working as Trump’s vice president.
“It obviously didn’t end well,” he noted. But for all those four years the president and I had a good working relationship. A lot of times moods differ on things, but we both understand each other, we were working on the same agenda.
