Former Vice President Mike Pence told special counsel Jack Smith’s team that he tried to get someone else to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election because he did not want to upset former President Donald Trump, according to ABC News.
Pence, who may be called to testify at Trump’s D.C. election subversion trial scheduled to begin in March, told prosecutors that Trump surrounded himself with “crank” lawyers after his election loss that espoused “un-American” legal theories and nearly pushed the country into a “constitutional crisis,” sources told ABC News.
Pence told Smith’s team he was “sure” he informed Trump that he hadn’t seen evidence of significant election fraud but Trump continued to claim the election was “stolen.”
Prosecutors also obtained Pence’s personal notes that he took after meetings with Trump and others from the National Archives, according to the report.
One of the notes shows that Pence initially decided to skip the Jan. 6 certification of the election results.
"Not feeling like I should attend electoral count," Pence wrote. "Too many questions, too many doubts, too hurtful to my friend. Therefore I'm not going to participate in certification of election."
But Pence ultimately decided he had a duty to show up, sources told ABC News..
Pence told investigators his loyalty to Trump never faltered.
"My only higher loyalty was to God and the Constitution," he said, according to the outlet’s sources.
Legal experts argued that the report undermined the narrative surrounding Pence as a Jan. 6 hero.
“I myself would never want to upset a good friend who wishes to see me hung by an angry armed mob,” quipped conservative attorney George Conway.
“Yet another profile in courage,” tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang.
“So much for the view that Pence was a principled man who did the right thing on January 6,” added former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.
But George Washington University Law Prof. Randall Eliason argued that the report “arguably boosts this view.”
“If he had stayed away, [then-Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck] Grassley would have been in charge, as may have been the plan for those plotting the coup,” he wrote. “Instead Pence showed up and did the right thing.”
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Smith’s team also repeatedly focused on Pence’s book detailing the events surrounding Jan. 6. In one instance, Pence wrote that he told Trump: “You know, I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome” of the election on Jan. 6.
Pence told Smith’s team that the comma should not have been placed there and he actually meant to write that he admonished Trump: "You know I don't think I have the authority to change the outcome.”
Pence told investigators that in December 2020 he was still ”very open to the possibility that there was voter fraud,” according to the report. But he said he grew concerned after Trump dismissed the advice of credible attorneys following his loss and instead relied on the advice of Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, whom Pence told investigators "did a great disservice to the president and a great disservice to the country."
Pence said he advised Trump to “simply accept the results” and “take a bow” and then “run again if you want.”
"And I'll never forget, he pointed at me ... as if to say, 'That's worth thinking about.' And he walked [away]," Pence told investigators, according to ABC’s sources.
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Two days later, Trump re-tweeted a post falsely claiming that Pence could disqualify legitimate electors on Jan. 6.
Pence said at that moment, while he was on Christmas vacation, he turned to his wife and said, “here we go.”
A spokesman for Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, told ABC News: "Tens of millions of Americans, including Vice President Pence, as he repeatedly stated himself, have had grave and serious concerns about the legitimacy of the rigged and stolen 2020 Presidential Election, further proving that the lawless indictment against President Trump should be summarily dismissed."
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