The US House of Representatives Committee investigating last year’s Capitol attack has turned its attention to former President Donald Trump’s pressure on his vice president to overturn the 2020 election results.
As cracker and president of the Senate, Mike Pence ceremonially presided over the certification of the vote on January 6, 2021.
Witnesses, including many Pence assistant and advisortestified in detail before the panel on Thursday about Trump’s attempt to convince the then vice president to overturn the election results.
Here are five key lessons learned from the third public hearing this month:
Pence has no constitutional authority to overturn an election: Witnesses
Several witnesses testified on Thursday that Pence had no legal power to interfere in the election results, stressing that there was no precedent in US history for what Trump is asking his vice president to do.
J Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals judge who also previously served as an unofficial adviser to Pence, drove home during the opening remarks. Luttig said if the former vice president followed Trump’s orders, it would cause the first one constitutional crisis in US history.
Claiming that Trump won the 2020 election over Joe Biden “will push America into what I believe would be tantamount to a revolution in the midst of a constitutional crisis in America,” he told the assembly. copper.
Luttig later added that the notion that the vice president has a substantive – not merely ceremonial – role in counting electoral votes is “constitutionally misleading”.
“I had to put my body across the street before the vice president overturned the 2020 election,” said Luttig.
Trump’s team knows campaigning is illegal: Panel
Witnesses said Thursday that Trump and his aides, who are pushing Pence to overturn the vote, know that their plan would violate the US Constitution.
“Donald Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, but he couldn’t participate in the peaceful transition of power, so he clung to a plan that – again – he knew. is illegal,” said Democratic Congressman Pete Aguilar, who played a key role in Thursday’s hearing.
Greg Jacob, a former adviser to Pence, testified that John Eastman, a Trump attorney who is pushing for the vice president to overturn the election results, acknowledged that the Supreme Court would unanimously rule. against such interference.
“We will not lose 9 goals in the game Supreme Court? ‘ Jacob recalls asking Eastman.
“And again, at first he started: ‘Well, maybe we’ll only lose seven to two.” But in the end [Eastman] admit that no, we will lose nine no. None of the judges supported his argument.”
Pence’s life is in danger, council says
The panel said the Capitol rioters came within 12m (40 feet) of Pence took shelter inside the building on January 6.
“Make no mistake about the fact that the vice president’s life is at stake,” Aguilar said. “A recent Justice Department court filing explains that a confidential informant from Proud boys told the FBI that the Proud Boys would kill Mike Pence if given the chance. “
For his part, Jacob said Pence refused to leave the Capitol building even when it became clear that rioters were inside.
“The vice president didn’t want any chance for the world to see the vice president of the United States flee from the United States Capitol,” Jacob testified.
He said Pence was “determined” to fulfill his constitutional mandate to preside over the election.
Jacob added that the former vice president wanted to make sure that rioters “wouldn’t be satisfied with disrupting proceedings after the date they were supposed to be detained.”
During the tense call before the riots, Trump threw insults at Pence
Witnesses described a tense call between Trump and Pence on the morning of January 6, before the riots broke out. The then-president hurled insults at his vice-president for refusing to overturn the election results, according to testimonies.
Nicholas Luna, a former Trump aide, said in an audio recording that he remembers Trump calling Pence a “fool.”
Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, recalled that the conversation had “heated up”.
“It’s a different tone than I’ve heard him speak to the vice president before,” she said in a video.
Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s former chief of staff, said the former presidential adviser told her that Trump had called Pence a “P-word”.
The committee highlighted how Trump focused his anger on his vice president after Pence refused to interrupt Biden’s presidential victory certification.
Chairman Bennie Thompson said: “We are blessed with Mr. Pence’s courage.
“On January 6, our democracy came dangerously close to disaster. That bravery put him in great danger. When Mike Pence made it clear that he would not give in to Donald Trump’s plans, Donald Trump tipped the crowd with him.”
Former judge says Trump remains ‘clear’ danger to US democracy
Luttig, a retired federal judge, said Trump and his allies remained “a clear and present danger to Americans”. democracy“.
A conservative legal scholar appointed to the federal judiciary by former Republican President George W Bush, Luttig said Trump and his allies have pledged they “will try to overturn” the election. elected in 2024 if the outcome is not to our liking.
“I don’t take those words lightly,” Luttig told the committee, making his remarks slow. “I would never have said those words in my life – except that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us.”
