Pence responds to court ruling compelling him to testify on Trump: ‘Nothing to hide’
Ryan King
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Former Vice President Mike Pence responded to the recent court ruling compelling him to testify about conversations surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. He insisted he has nothing to hide.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Pence must speak with a grand jury impaneled to aid in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of former President Donald Trump, CNN reported. Pence indicated that he will make a “decision in the coming days” about whether to challenge that ruling.
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“Let me be clear: I have nothing to hide. I have a Constitution to uphold. I upheld the Constitution on Jan. 6. I believe we did our duty that day under the Constitution of the United States. And in this matter, I thought it was important that we stand on their constitutional principle again,” Pence told Newsmax’s The Record with Greta Van Susteren.
Pence had long sought to avoid testifying before the panel and had leaned on an argument that protections in the debate clause, which insulates congressional officials from legal scrutiny over their work, apply to the vice president. He also avoided testifying before the now-dissolved House Jan. 6 committee.
“I’m pleased that the court accepted our argument and recognized that the Constitution’s provision about speech and debate does apply to the vice president. But the way they sorted that out and the requirements of my testimony … are subject to our review,” he said. “We’re evaluating the court’s decision.”
Smith has been spearheading the Justice Department’s investigations of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as well as the coinciding efforts to thwart the 2020 election and the Mar-a-Lago classified document ordeal concerning Trump. Pence has also been under scrutiny for classified documents after material was unearthed at his Indiana residence earlier this year.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-FL) have voiced frustration with the intelligence community for not being more forthcoming about the nature of the documents that were found at the residences of Trump, Pence, and President Joe Biden.
“I would have no objection whatsoever to him seeing the documents,” Pence replied when asked. “Members of the Senate Intel Committee deal with classified documents on a regular basis, and the materials that were inadvertently packed and stored at my residence we discovered earlier this year. Out of an abundance of caution, we engaged in a review.”
“I’d be very, very happy to cooperate with any further inquiry from members of the Senate, and I look forward to putting this matter behind us in the near future,” he added.
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Pence has been testing the waters for a possible 2024 presidential run, which would put him on a collision course with onetime boss Trump. He laid out “spring or early summer” as a time frame for his decision about whether to run and stressed that he is receiving an “awful lot of encouragement from around the country.”
He is currently running in third place in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary, per the latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate. Earlier in the day Tuesday, Pence delivered a keynote at Liberty University School of Law’s Consecration Service. He also has an eighth trip to Iowa scheduled for Wednesday following a recent stint in New Hampshire.