Former US Vice President Pence Appears Before Grand Jury to Testify on Trump’s Involvement in Capitol Riot

Former US Vice President Mike Pence testified Thursday before a grand jury investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, marking a significant milestone for prosecutors investigating former President Donald Trump.

Pence spent the entire day answering questions under oath for the first time about the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Just hours after an appeals court dismissed Trump’s long-running attempt to block his testimony, Pence arrived at federal court in Washington, D.C., around 8 a.m. and left around 4:30 p.m.

Grand juries are working in secret, and there was no immediate word on what questions Pence asked or how he answered.

Pence himself agreed to be bound by a separate ruling ordering him to testify on most, but not all, of the cases that Special Counsel Jack Smith might have planned to ask him about Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Pence has never before said under oath what he knows about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election or what Trump has said to him behind closed doors.

Other witnesses said Trump sought to bully Pence into supporting his “stop the steal” campaign and hoped to get him to refuse to certify President Biden’s victory in a Jan. 6 congressional session.

Pence could highlight Trump’s intent to push back the lies of his election and deliver a fiery speech on Jan. 6 when he urged his radical supporters to “fight like hell” to keep him in power.

Pence was forced to flee for his life from enraged assailants who stormed the Capitol building chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”

The vice president fled to a secure area of ​​the Capitol until security forces recaptured the compound hours later.

Pence, who is considering running for president against Trump in 2024, has sought to avoid publicly criticizing Trump. He refused to appear before the January 6 congressional committee and fought a grand jury subpoena.

Trump separately launched a Hail Mary attempt to involve Congress in the investigation into his transfer of classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office.

His lawyers wrote to Republican lawmakers late Tuesday asking them to pass legislation that would withdraw the investigation from the Justice Department and Smith and turn it over to the intelligence community, which would not have criminal investigation power over it.

Smith is investigating Trump for mishandling documents and obstructing his investigation, particularly by challenging a subpoena demanding the return of classified documents.

This measure has no chance of passing the Democrat-led Senate let alone winning President Biden’s signature.

Neither the documents case nor the Capitol attack investigation is related to the civil rape case brought against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll in Manhattan federal court, or the Stormy Daniels Hush Money case, with which Trump was recently indicted by a state grand jury. Manhattan.