April 28
By Claire Hansen
Former Vice President Mike Pence reportedly testified on Thursday before a grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump and others for their efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Pence’s testimony marks another extraordinary development in the slate of probes into Trump’s conduct, one which saw a former vice president testify about the actions of his ticketmate while they were both still in power – a historic first.
The news, reported by several outlets Thursday evening, comes after both Trump and Pence sought to block a subpoena issued to the former vice president by Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel leading the investigation into Trump’s actions after the 2020 election, as well as into Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office.
The court challenges were made on different grounds, and a federal judge last month ordered Pence to comply with the subpoena, rejecting Trump’s arguments wholecloth and granting Pence only a partial victory.
The judge ordered Pence to testify about any potential illegality on behalf of Trump, including things potentially expressed in conversations between the two men in the wake of the election and in the run-up to the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Pence later said he would not fight the judge’s order. Trump’s lawyers appealed the ruling, and a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected Trump’s bid Wednesday night, paving the way for Pence’s testimony Thursday.
Trump has declared himself a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination and is the current front-runner of a field that is still materializing. Pence is said to be weighing his own bid for the White House and has struggled to set himself apart from his former boss without alienating Trump’s supporters among the Republican base.
Pence came under fire from Trump and his supporters for certifying the election results on Jan. 6, as is the responsibility of the vice president.
Pence last month told a gathering of journalists that Trump was “wrong” for denying the election results.
“I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. And I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable,” he said.