Pence Agrees to Testify in January 6 Grand-Jury Case, Waives Right to Appeal
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Mike Pence will not appeal a federal judge’s ruling that he must testify before the grand jury investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, a spokesman said Wednesday, likely setting the stage for the former vice president to reveal under oath how Trump privately pressured him to overturn the 2020 election results.
“The Court’s landmark and historic ruling affirmed for the first time in history that the Speech or Debate Clause extends to the Vice President of the United States,” Pence spokesman Devin O’Malley said. “Having vindicated that principle of the Constitution, Vice President Pence will not appeal the Judge’s ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law.”
In early March, Pence filed a motion asking a judge to block the subpoena order for his testimony before the January 6 special-counsel probe, arguing that the Constitutional protection known as the “speech and debate clause” protected the former vice-president.
According to his legal advisors, Pence occupied a hybrid role given his dual function at the time as a member of the trump administration and the president of the Senate. As a result, Pence was entitled to protections that cover him from criminal inquiries, his legal team argued.
The decision in late March by District Court judge James Boasberg requiring Pence to testify in a limited capacity marked the first time in American legal history where a vice-president was found to have some elements of congressional immunity.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s team has repeatedly tried to block former aides from testifying in the multiple legal battles the former president is currently embroiled in across the country. Last year, former lawyers and aides of Trump were compelled to testify by a judge’s order before a grand jury.
On Monday, Trump attorneys filed an emergency bid seeking to overturn a lower court ruling permitting associates to testify before the special counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 probe.
Consequently, Mark Meadows, Trump’s ex-chief of staff, and John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence, may be summoned to Washington, D. C., to testify.
Pence has also become increasingly vocal in his criticism of Trump in recent months.
In February, the former vice president rejected claims that he was empowered to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. “I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone,” he said at a Federalist Society event in Florida.
“Frankly there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president,” Pence added.
