Mike Pence's rebuke of Donald Trump on Friday was the beginning of the end for the former president, according to former GOP Congresswoman Barbara Comstock.
"I think what you're seeing is, the Trump operation is in sort of a meltdown," Comstock told CNN on Saturday. "Of course, Mike Pence is right — Donald Trump was wrong — and he basically also called him un-American, and he did it in front of conservative Federalist Society members who gave him a standing ovation."
Comstock noted that Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, also appeared at the event and was spotted speaking with former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany — "who has turned over apparently, reportedly, a lot of her documents to the (House Jan. 6) committee."
"You have Mike Pence staff meeting with the committee, talking to them, turning over documents now while the (National) Archive(s) documents are being turned over," Comstock said.
"The walls are closing in on Trump, and I think this was a desperate audience-of-one resolution from the RNC," Comstock said, referring to the Republican National Committee's censure of Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Liz Cheney (R-WY), which referred to the Capitol insurrection as "legitimate political discourse."
"Let's not call it the Republican Party," Comstock said of the RNC. "It's 168 members who obviously are intimidated by Donald Trump."
"But I think you're going to have not just Mike Pence, but people like (former Attorney General) Bill Barr and other Justice Department people stand up," she added. "If they interview people from the White House counsel's office — they all told Donald Trump he was wrong. And then as we've talked about repeatedly, those Jan. 6 emails and contacts in the weeks and days leading up to it, all of that contemporaneous documentation is going to come out and spill out, and show that not only was Donald Trump wrong, he was engaged in what I think could very likely be criminal activity, but certainly was unconstitutional and impeachable, which will make people like Liz Cheney be more than right in what she's doing, and (is) why the Jan. 6 committee is so important."
After CNN host Jim Acosta played a clip of GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz criticizing Pence on Steve Bannon's podcast, Comstock unloaded on the pair.
"These are the lowest of the low, these are the only people left in the Trump circle," she said. "Look at who didn't speak up yesterday. There were not people out on Fox (News) all day defending this resolution or pushing back on Mike Pence, or defending the former president and his talk of (Jan. 6) pardons. Republicans are now silent. So if you're Donald Trump, that means you don't have a lot of support. You may intimidate people, but these are all people who really ultimately hope you go away."
"It's all closing in on him, and these desperate people who he still has around him themselves may be in need of, hoping for, pardons or power from Donald Trump, something that will never come because he never will be re-elected," Comstock said. "But it is a pathetic group who is still around him, and Republicans should not fear a man who has people around him you wouldn't hire to run for a dog catcher's race, so why would you fear these people now?"
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