Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., speaks as the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol holds a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, June 16, 2022.Ĭongressman Pete Aguilar, a California Democrat who led questioning of Thursday’s witnesses, noted that a federal judge recently declared that Trump's arm-twisting of Pence likely violated two federal criminal statutes. Short, who worried about Trump turning on Pence and reportedly alerted the Secret Service to a potential security threat to Pence's life, did not testify live, but clips of his videotaped deposition were aired several times during Thursday's hearing. The committee showed a brief video clip of Marc Short, who served as Pence's chief of staff, saying that Pence told Trump “many times” that he did not have the authority to overturn the Biden victory. “This is what he told his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob, to instruct his supporters to leave,” Cheney said. “Mike Pence deserves it.”Ĭheney also said, “President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol … and I quote, ‘were doing what they should be doing.’” “Maybe our supporters have the right idea,' he allegedly said. Republican Representative Liz Cheney, the vocally anti-Trump vice chairperson of the House of Representatives panel investigating the insurrection, said last week that Trump, watching the mayhem unfold on television from the White House, told aides he agreed with the idea that Pence should be hanged. Some erected a gallows on the National Mall in sight of the Capitol. With Pence announcing ahead of time that he would not accede to Trump’s demand, some of the rioters at the Capitol turned against him as they stormed past security barriers, scuffled with police and ransacked congressional offices.

“I had no right to overturn the election,' Pence has since said, even though his role required him to also certify his own defeat to Democrat Kamala Harris, now the U.S. “He knew it was wrong.”Īs Trump realized Pence would not upend the election results, Thompson said, “Donald Trump turned the mob on him, the mob that chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” Jacob said Pence “didn’t want to give the rioters the satisfaction of seeing him flee the Capitol.”Īs he opened the hearing, Democratic committee chairman Bennie Thompson said Pence “knew it was illegal” to overturn the election. Pence, a Trump loyalist during their four years in the White House, refused Trump’s demands, saying his role was limited by the Constitution to simply open the envelopes containing the Electoral College vote counts from each state.Īs the rioters stormed the Capitol and threatened Pence’s life, Jacob said Pence was moved by his Secret Service detail to a secure location in the Capitol at an underground loading dock where he stayed for 4½ hours.īut Pence refused, Jacob said, to get into a car because he feared the Secret Service would drive him out of the building. Jacob said, “The vice president never budged from his first position that no one person had the authority to overturn the election.” The committee recounted how Trump refused to call off the mob attacking the Capitol as Pence, just feet away from rioters, was whisked to safety.Greg Jacob, who was counsel to former Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge, are sworn in to testify as the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol holds a hearing at the Capit

Capitol that fractured the relationship between the two men. 6 committee revealed new details about the violent insurrection at the U.S. It also comes just a day after the House Jan. The split-screen moment marks a more confrontational phase in their relationship as they both consider running for president in 2024. Trump and Pence have occasionally taken different sides in primaries this year, but this is the first time that they will have appeared in the same state on the same day to rally for their preferred candidates. “President Trump and Vice President Pence already showed that it can be done.” “Securing the border takes two things: resources and will power,” Robson said. Robson, Pence and Ducey also discussed border security during a second event in Tucson at the headquarters for the Border Patrol union, which staunchly supported Trump but broke with him and endorsed Robson.

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