WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Pence won’t be testifying at Thursday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing. But he will be in the spotlight as the focus turns to former President Donald Trump’s desperate and futile attempts to persuade his vice president to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and deliver them a second term.
“As you will hear, President Trump engaged in a relentless effort to pressure Pence both in private and in public,” Rep. Liz Cheney, the leading Republican on the committee, said last week. “Vice President Pence demonstrated his loyalty to Donald Trump consistently over four years, but he knew that he had a higher duty to the United States Constitution.”
What we know about Pence’s actions leading up to and during that day:
UNDER PRESSURE
As Trump’s frantic efforts to stave off defeat were quashed by courts and state officials, he and his allies zeroed in on Jan. 6 — the day a joint session of Congress would convene to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s win — as their last chance to remain in power.
The heavy-handed pressure campaign intensified in the days leading up to the 6th as Trump, lawyer John Eastman and others in Trump’s orbit tried to convince Pence that he had the power to overturn the will of voters in a handful of critical battleground states by simply rejecting Electoral College votes or sending the results back to the states — even though the Constitution makes clear the vice president’s role in the proceedings is largely ceremonial.
Pence spent hours huddling with staff, including his general counsel, Greg Jacob. He studied the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which governs the proceedings, and met with the Senate parliamentarian to understand his role. He also received outside counsel, including from former Vice President Dan Quayle.
Some aides appealed to Trump not to put his unflinchingly loyal vice president in such a precarious position. Pence was already widely seen as a potential future presidential candidate and a public fissure with Trump was seen as a potential career ender. But Trump kept pushing, both publicly and behind the scenes.
On Monday, Jan. 4, Eastman and Trump pressed Pence to go along with the scheme in an Oval Office meeting. And at a rally that night in Georgia, Trump said his fate rested in his vice president’s hands. “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us,” he told the crowd.
Trump continued to push in an Oval Office meeting the next day, again demanding Pence use powers the vice president did not possess to overturn the will of voters. Pence made clear he was unconvinced.
That day, Jacob sent a memo putting in writing his conclusion that if Pence followed Eastman’s proposal, he would likely lose in court, at best, or spark a constitutional crisis, Politico first reported. The tensions were so high that Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, placed a call to Pence’s lead Secret Service agent that day, The New York Times first reported, informing him that the vice president’s refusal to go along with Trump was about to become public.
Given the crowds en route to Washington, “I thought it was important at least to let the Secret Service know that it was about to become a much more public disagreement,” Short said Wednesday on CNN.
‘HANG MIKE PENCE’
The pressure continued through the night. “If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency,” Trump tweeted around 1 a.m.
“All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN,” he wrote later that morning. “Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”
Pence was at his residence at the Naval Observatory the morning of Jan. 6 when he spoke a final time with Trump, who was joined in the Oval Office by his daughter Ivanka and Pence’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg. During the call, in the 11 o’clock hour, Trump berated Pence, chastising him for not being tough enough to go along with the scheme, according to Kellogg’s testimony to the committee.
Pence then headed to the Capitol to oversee the counting of the Electoral College votes. But first Pence made official his decision. In a letter addressed to his colleagues in Congress, Pence explained why he couldn’t go along with Trump’s plan.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” he wrote.
At 1:03 p.m., he officially gaveled the U.S. Senate into session as pro-Trump rioters, who had already breached Capitol barricades, were outside clashing with police.
By that point, Trump was already close to wrapping up his speech on the Ellipse in which he repeatedly targeted Pence and urged his supporters to “fight like hell.”
“If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” Trump falsely told the crowd. “All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.”
Outside the Capitol, the scene devolved into violent chaos as rioters, some armed with pipes, bats and bear spray, charged into the Capitol, quickly overwhelming police. One officer was beaten and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun until he had a heart attack. Another was foaming at the mouth and screaming for help as rioters crushed him between two doors and bashed him in the head with his own weapon. At 1:49 p.m., D.C. police officially declared a riot.
At about 2:12 p.m., Pence was rushed off the Senate floor as rioters flooded inside. The Washington Post first reported that Pence, who had been joined that day by his wife and daughter, was at one point less than 100 feet from a group of protesters.
IN HIDING
Pence spent the next hours in hiding with his staff and family — first in his ceremonial office and then in an underground loading dock inside the Capitol complex. At several points, he rejected pleas from security staff to leave, insisting it was crucial that he remain in place.
“He looked at that and said, ‘I don’t want the world seeing the vice president leaving the Capitol in a 15-car motorcade,’” Short told CNN on Wednesday. “’This is the hallmark of democracy and we’re going to complete our work.’”
But even as the horror played out live on television, Trump, instead of urging his supporters to go home, blasted Pence.
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,” Trump tweeted at 2:24 p.m.
Trump’s tweet echoed through the angry mob. Footage obtained by the committee shows rioters reading Trump’s words aloud and crowds breaking into chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” A makeshift gallows was photographed outside.
Cheney charged that Trump was made aware of the chants and “responded with this sentiment: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it.’” (Trump responded on his social media app, saying he “NEVER said, or even thought of saying, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’”)
Pence worked the phone from his then-secret location. Short told Fox Business that Pence’s first calls were to Republican and Democratic House and Senate leaders — Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer — “to make sure they were safe and to make sure their functions were OK.” Pence also “reached out to the Pentagon to make sure additional reinforcements were sent” at the encouragement of House and Senate leaders, who made clear in subsequent calls that they were frustrated the National Guard had not arrived.
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee in testimony that military leaders spoke two or three times with Pence and that the vice president “was very animated, very direct, very firm to (Acting Defense) Secretary (Christopher) Miller.”
“Get the military down here, get the Guard down here. Put down this situation, et cetera,” Milley recalled.
Indeed, at 4:08 p.m., Pence placed an urgent phone call from the Capitol as rioters pummeled police and vandalized the building, informing Miller the Capitol was not secure and asking military leaders for a deadline for securing the building, according to a document prepared by the Pentagon for internal use that was obtained by The Associated Press.
“Clear the Capitol,” Pence told them.
Milley told the committee that Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had a different focus when they also spoke.
“He said: We have to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions. We need to establish the narrative, you know, that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable, or words to that effect,” Milley testified.
Eastman and Jacob also exchanged emails, according to the committee, with Jacob telling Eastman that, “thanks to your bull—-, we are under siege.”
‘LET’S GET BACK TO WORK’
At 8 p.m., after hours of fear and carnage, the Capitol was finally deemed secure.
Pence reconvened the Senate with a message.
“Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. But thanks to the swift efforts of U.S. Capitol Police, federal, state and local law enforcement, the violence was quelled. The Capitol is secured. And the people’s work continues,” he told the nation. “Let’s get back to work,” he said to applause.
Just after 3:40 a.m. Pence officially declared Trump’s election defeat — as well as his own.
‘TRUMP IS WRONG’
Pence, over the last year and a half, has repeatedly said he stands by his actions as he has reckoned with the political fallout and tried to lay the groundwork for a potential presidential run in 2024.
A year ago, after months out of the spotlight, Pence said in a major speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library that he was “proud” of what he did on Jan. 6.
“The truth is,” he said, “there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.”
And in February of this year, as Trump continued to criticize Pence’s actions, Pence took on Trump by name, telling a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in Florida that “President Trump is wrong” and he had “no right to overturn the election.”
Pence, however, has also tried to move on from that day. On Monday he spoke to reporters after touring the border in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
“I’ll always believe that I did my duty that day. And I know in my heart of hearts I did. And I believe that, when all the information and the facts come forward, the American people will better understand what occurred,” he said. “But standing here today on our southern border, I’m calling on President Biden to do his duty. I mean, the truth is a president of the United States has an obligation to provide for the common defense, to guarantee the common defense of this country. And border security is national security.”
1/6 panel probes Trump pressure on Pence to reject election
WASHINGTON (AP) — The 1/6 committee is set to plunge into Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to salvage the 2020 election by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral count — a highly unusual and potentially illegal strategy that was set in motion in the run-up to the U.S. Capitol riot.
With two live witnesses Thursday, the House panel intends to show how Trump’s false claims of a fraudulent election left him grasping for alternatives as courts turned back dozens of lawsuits challenging the vote.
Trump latched onto conservative law professor John Eastman’s obscure plan and launched a public and private pressure campaign on Pence days before the vice president was to preside over the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s election victory. A federal judge has said it is “more likely than not” Trump committed crimes over the scheme.
“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” the Jan. 6 panel said in a court filing against Eastman.
The committee will hear from Greg Jacob, the vice president’s counsel who fended off Eastman’s ideas for Pence to carry out the plan; and retired federal judge Michael Luttig, who called the plan from Eastman, his former law clerk, “incorrect at every turn.”
Thursday’s session is also expected to divulge new evidence about the danger Pence faced that day as the mob stormed the Capitol shouting “hang Mike Pence!” with a gallows on the Capitol grounds as the vice president fled with senators into hiding. Nine people died in the riot and its aftermath.
The session is expected to show how Trump’s pressure on Pence “directly contributed” to the attack on the Capitol and how the Eastman strategy posed a “grave, grave threat” to democracy, according to a committee aide who insisted on anonymity to discuss the upcoming hearing.
Ahead of the hearing, Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, said his boss was determined to stay at the Capitol that night and finish the job, despite the threats.
“He knew his job was to stay at his post,” Short said on CNN on Wednesday.
Short said Pence didn’t want the world seeing the vice president leaving the Capitol when “a hallmark of democracy” was under siege.
“He thought it was important that he stay there and make sure the work of the American people was completed that night,” said Short, who testified under subpoena to the committee for eight hours, but has not yet appeared as a live witness.
The panel is reconvening for a third hearing this month after a blockbuster prime-time start last week, followed by logistical setbacks in recent days. Monday’s key witness, former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, abruptly declined to appear in person because his wife was in labor with their child. Wednesday’s scheduled hearing with witnesses from the Justice Department who tried to convince Trump that his claims of voter fraud were just not true was postponed.
Nevertheless, the panel’s yearlong investigation is portraying a publicly gripping account of Trump’s final weeks in office as the defeated president clung to “the big lie” of a rigged election even as those around him — his family, his top aides, officials at the highest levels of government — were telling him he simply lost the election.
Former Attorney General William Barr, who resigned at the end of 2020 rather than be part of Trump’s plans, testified earlier that the president was becoming “detached from reality” if he believed the lies. He said he told the president his claims of voter fraud were “bull-—.”
With 1,000 interviews and reams of 140,000 documents, the committee is connecting the dots, showing how Trump’s false claims of election fraud became a battle cry as he summoned thousands of Americans to Washington for a Jan. 6 rally and then sent them to Capitol Hill to “fight like hell” for his presidency.
More than 800 people have been arrested in the Capitol siege, and the panel is considering whether to send a referral for criminal charges against Trump to the Justice Department. No president or former president has ever been indicted by the Justice Department, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has said he and his team are following the proceedings in Congress.
For now, the panel is pressing ahead with its hearings, with more scheduled for next week.
Thursday’s will unpack the Eastman plan to have the states send alternative slates of electors from the five or seven states Trump was disputing, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With competing slates for Trump or Biden, Pence would be forced to reject them, returning them to the states to sort it out, under the plan.
Pence refused the plan, believing the founding fathers would not have left it to one person, the vice president, to decide the outcome, Jacob told the panel in previous testimony. Jacob said the idea was utterly against some 130 years of precedent in American history, “entirely made up.”
The committee in hearings ahead will be delving into the roles of extremist groups and others who heeded Trump’s call to Washington. Leaders and others from the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys face rare sedition charges over their roles in the Capitol attack.
Several members of Congress are also under scrutiny, including Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., whom the committee has asked for an interview to discuss a Capitol tour he gave that included basement tunnels to a group of people the day before the attack.
The panel is also probing several candidates for elected office, including the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, who were among the rioters.
The panel, which is expected to deliver a final report on its findings later this year, intends for its work to be a record for history of the most violent attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812. Unlike other national traumas that have pulled the country together, the Jan. 6 Capitol attack appears to have left many Americans divided. Congress splintered over forming the committee, which most Republicans opposed.
The panel’s two Republicans, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, have been shunned by the GOP for their work with Democrats leading the investigation into Trump and his role in the Capitol attack.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in Los Angeles contributed to this report.