Jan. 6 panel: Trump dictated false statement claiming Pence could overturn election
“The vice president and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act,” Trump said in an untrue statement on Jan. 5, 2021.
On Jan. 5, 2021, then-President Donald Trump ordered his campaign to make a false statement that Vice President Mike Pence had agreed that he had the power to overturn the election, according to testimony aired Thursday by lawmakers.
“The vice president and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act,” Trump said in the statement.
Except it was a lie. Pence and his team had insisted for days — including in a Jan. 4 meeting directly with Trump — that such an effort would be illegal and Pence would have no part in it. The evidence underscored the degree to which Trump actively pushed his desperate bid to stay in power, an effort that had convinced thousands of supporters who descended on Washington on Jan. 6 that Pence would single-handedly overturn the election.
When Pence refused, a mob that had already encircled and broken into the Capitol grew even more menacing, with some chanting “hang Mike Pence” as the vice president fled to a secure underground loading dock beneath the building.
The select committee’s evidence for Trump’s role in the Jan. 5 statement came from Jason Miller, a Trump campaign adviser who told the select committee he was on the phone with Trump as the statement was crafted.
“He dictated most of it … specifically on this one, it was me and him on the phone talking through it,” Miller said.
The newly revealed evidence came amid a hearing focused on Trump’s pressure campaign against Pence. It featured testimony from a top aide to Pence — counsel Greg Jacob — who issued a warning to Americans: “The law is not a plaything for presidents or judges.”
In a three-page statement he provided to the Jan. 6 select committee, Jacob detailed what he says are the underlying principles that led Pence to reject Trump’s pressure to declare that President Joe Biden’s win was illegitimate.
“The Vice President’s first instinct was that the Framers of our Constitution, who abhorred concentrated power, would never have entrusted any one person with the unilateral authority to alter the outcome of a presidential election — particularly not a person who is on the ticket,” Jacob wrote. Pence, he added, “never wavered from that view.”
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Eastman continued to push his efforts even as the mob ransacked the Capitol, sending Pence and lawmakers fleeing for safety. In court filings, the select committee disclosed emails between Jacob and Eastman amid the violence, with Eastman continuing to urge him to disregard the Electoral Count Act’s limitations and postpone the session. Jacob repeatedly rebuffed him, adding, “Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.”
Alongside Jacob was former appeals court Judge Michael Luttig, a conservative for whom Eastman once clerked. Jacob deputized Luttig to help Pence craft his final pushback to Trump’s pressure campaign, and Pence quoted his argument in a Jan. 6 statement announcing his decision to refuse to go along with Trump. Luttig has since vocally warned that the forces behind Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election are still a threat to future elections.
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Select committee is now showing that the mob at the Capitol "surged" and grew more violent just after Trump tweeted an attack on Pence at 2:24 pm. https://t.co/QOfPV9JvFt
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 16, 2022
EASTMAN asked Rudy Giulinan to put him "on the pardon list" a few days after Jan. 6, the select committee reveals. https://t.co/QOfPV9JvFt
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 16, 2022
The little men, the mice in the grain, are as much a danger to the Constitution as the flashy blowhards like Trump and Bannon. Maybe even more so. https://t.co/0ZRW3cLLSj
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 16, 2022
Mike Pence has emerged as a constitutional hero in the #January6thHearings . In the old GOP, this would have made him a frontrunner for the next presidential nomination. In today’s Trump Republican Party, it makes him an apostate and considerable underdog.
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) June 16, 2022
Never before seen (by public) photos that were in national archives of Pence sheltering in the secure location
Remember Pence refused to leave the Capitol. Greg Jacob got out of the car after Pence refused
51/ pic.twitter.com/J6HTKuBoyO
— Jennifer Taub 🌻 🇺🇸 (@jentaub) June 16, 2022
Listening to these hearings, you can see why Republicans, both in electoral politics and in the media, worked so very hard to keep them from ever coming about.
— Jay Nordlinger (@jaynordlinger) June 16, 2022
Former Pence adviser Greg Jacob testified before the Jan. 6 panel that it's "unambiguous" that the VP can't reject electors.
"There is no mention of rejecting or objecting to electors anywhere in the 12th amendment." pic.twitter.com/HjlE5N8Jwe
— POLITICO (@politico) June 16, 2022
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