Former President Donald Trump is reportedly appealing a court ruling that requires former Vice President Mike Pence to testify to a grand jury investigating Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Trump has made his appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, per Bloomberg, after a judge ruled last month against Trump’s assertion that executive privilege should prevent Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s office from seeking Pence’s testimony.
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Pence had previously said he would not appeal the ruling, which compels him to testify before the grand jury investing the former president on all matters except those relating to his service as president of the Senate.
Trump is intervening to appeal, asserting his own executive privilege as president. His claims of executive privilege have previously been dismissed, but Pence’s privilege claim about his Senate president testimony through the “speech or debate” clause was upheld.
The former president is being investigated by Smith for his alleged role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith is also probing Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
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Trump was indicted last month in New York on charges of falsifying business records in relation to alleged hush-money payments to two women and a former doorman of Trump Tower ahead of the 2016 election.
The former president also faces an investigation by a Georgia grand jury for his alleged interference in the 2020 election in the Peach State.
