Jan. 6 hearings enter third day with focus on vice president’s role
The select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot is entering its third day of testimony, with the questioning largely set to center on former President Donald Trump’s efforts to convince former Vice President Mike Pence to back his bid to overturn the election results. Video testimony is also expected from Pence chief of staff Marc Short.
Thursday’s testimony comes after the committee decided to postpone Wednesday’s hearing.
After drawing millions of views in its first prime-time hearing, interest in the committee’s investigation appeared to wane Monday, when roughly 10 million people tuned in.
Early reports about what the committee has learned about how Pence navigated Jan. 6 suggest that his boss was aware of the danger the vice president was in when he sent out a tweet blasting him for lacking “courage” to overturn the election results. Trump was reportedly supportive of rioters who were walking through the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” a charge the committee is expected to explore more today.
Follow along here for the latest updates and news from the committee.
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The Jan. 6 committee has adjourned its third hearing and is set to reconvene next week.
Future hearings are expected to focus on former President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure state officials to overturn election results, how he attempted to interfere with the Justice Department’s investigation, and what he was doing during the Jan. 6 riot.
The former president and his allies remain a danger to the country and may be plotting to control the outcome of the next presidential election, one witness testified during the Jan. 6 hearing on Thursday.
“Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. That’s not because of what happened on Jan. 6,” said J. Michael Luttig, one of the two witnesses during the panel’s third hearing. “They would attempt to overturn the 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election but would succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020. I don’t speak those words lightly. I’ve never spoken those words ever in my life except that, that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us.”
Trump lawyer John Eastman emailed Rudy Giuliani to see if he could be added to the president’s “pardon list, if that is still in the works” after White House attorney Eric Herschmann told him to get a criminal lawyer after Jan. 6, according to Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA).
Eastman did not receive a pardon. Instead, he used his 5th Amendment right to decline answering questions from the panel throughout his interview with investigators.
The Jan. 6 panel also showed an email from Eastman to Pence aides asking them to consider “one more relatively minor violation” of the Electoral Count Act even after the Jan. 6 riot. at the Capitol.
The Department of Justice accused the Jan. 6 committee of hampering its criminal investigation of the attack by not releasing transcripts from the panel’s interviews with witnesses.
WOW: DOJ wrote to the select committee yesterday saying the committee is hampering criminal invsetigations by their “failure” to provide witness transcripts. pic.twitter.com/0yg1bnJiFR
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 16, 2022
In a written statement on Thursday, the department requested the panel to release copies of all interview transcripts because it’s not “just potentially relevant to our overall criminal investigations, but are likely relevant to specific prosecutions that have already commenced.”
The mob that breached the Capitol building on Jan. 6 was at one point only 40 feet away from then-Vice President Mike Pence — prompting concerns among his security team and a scrambled evacuation to an underground loading dock.
However, Pence refused to leave the Capitol during the riot because he “did not want to take any chance the world would see the vice president of the United States fleeing the Capitol,” said Greg Jacob, Pence’s top White House lawyer.
Former President Donald Trump’s tweet that then-Vice President Mike Pence didn’t have “the courage” to overturn the election in his favor came after the Capitol building had already been breached, with some White House officials worried it would add more “gasoline on the fire.”
The tweet came minutes after Pence had been evacuated from the Senate chamber — with some on the Jan. 6 panel saying it may have fueled the attack.
“I remember us saying that that was the last thing that needed to be tweeted at that moment,” one White House official said. “The situation was already bad. And so it felt like he was pouring gasoline on the fire.”
Several rioters who breached the Capitol said they were inspired to protest because they believed they had been “betrayed” by former Vice President Mike Pence.
“Pence betrayed us, which apparently everybody knew he was going to. And the president mentioned it like five times,” one protester said, referring to former President Donald Trump’s speech at a rally before the Jan. 6 riot.
Other protesters argue that had Pence “done the right thing,” Trump would’ve won the election.
Former President Donald Trump had called former Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of Jan. 6, which witnesses described as a tense conversation between the pair as Pence told him he would not overturn the results.
Trump told Pence he would be considered weak if he didn’t reverse President Joe Biden’s victory, later telling the vice president he “made the wrong decision four years ago” when he chose Pence as a running mate, according to witnesses during the hearing. Although the exact words couldn’t be remembered, Nick Luna, the former president’s body guard said he distinctly remembered Trump saying the word “wimp.”
Trump later tweeted that day saying Pence “didn’t have the courage” to overturn the election.
Democrats on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol offered words of praise for former Vice President Mike Pence and his conduct the day of the attack, drawing a contrast to that of former President Donald Trump.
In the weeks between the election and Jan. 6, Pence faced pressure from Trump and his allies to refuse to certify the election results in his capacity as president of the Senate. On Jan. 6, Pence declined to do so, citing his lack of constitutional authority to reject state election results unilaterally. Constitutional scholars have rejected arguments that the vice president has such authority.
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Former federal judge J. Michael Luttig on Thursday told the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol that had Vice President Mike Pence acquiesced to President Donald Trump’s demand to declare him the victor of the 2020 election despite his loss, it would have prompted “the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.”
Luttig was an informal adviser to Pence in the closing days of the Trump administration, while the vice president faced pressure from Trump and his allies to refuse to certify the election results in his capacity as president of the Senate. Pence declined to do so, citing his lack of constitutional authority to reject state election results unilaterally.
Click here to read the full report.
Greg Jacob’s testimony at Thursday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing offers insight into the legal mechanisms at play as then-President Donald Trump tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the 2020 presidential election, though he has stayed out of the limelight thus far.
Jacob is a lawyer who was Pence’s chief legal counsel from March 2020 to January 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was in the Department of Labor between 2007 and 2009 and currently works in financial law. During the election certification drama, he argued against Trump lawyer John Eastman’s claims that Pence could simply refuse to certify the Electoral College result.
Click here to read the full report.
John Eastman ‘acknowledged’ that his proposed plan to have the Vice President overturn the election would have violated the Electoral Count Act, according to ex-Pence legal counsel Greg Jacob.
Jacob testifies that Eastman acknowledged on Jan. 4 that his approaches for Pence to take (less than rejection) would violate the Electoral Count Act, but that Eastman said the ECA is either unconstitutional or that the court wouldn’t hear it as a political question.
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) June 16, 2022
Eastman argued that either the ECA is unconstitutional, or that the courts would not view the issue as a political question.
Several people in then-President Donald Trump’s administration warned him that trying to overturn the 2020 election was bound to fail.
A former White House attorney told Trump that Pence having authority to hand him the presidency was “completely crazy,” and that voters are “not gonna tolerate that. You’re going to cause riots in the streets.”
J6 HEARING LIVE BLOG: https://t.co/BjxLuS7HqD pic.twitter.com/Cf7qhTDj93
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 16, 2022
Not only was the plan to have Vice President Mike Pence unilaterally declare Trump won the 2020 presidential contest doomed, they would result in violence, Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer, told the president at the time.
“You’re completely crazy,” Herschmann said. Voters are not gonna tolerate that. You’re going to cause riots in the streets.”
John Eastman was reportedly aware of the unconstitutional nature of his proposed approach to overturn the election, according to ex-Pence legal counsel Greg Jacob. If Mike Pence tried to overturn the election, Eastman acknowledged that it was likely that he would lose 9-0 in the Supreme Court.
Greg Jacob testifies that Eastman was fully aware that the Supreme Court would never buy his theory.
“Well, yeah, you’re right. We would lose 9-0.” pic.twitter.com/u3cVIFK09Z
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) June 16, 2022
“John, if the vice president did what you’re asking him to do, we would lose 9-0 in the Supreme Court, wouldn’t we?” Jacob asked Eastman. Eastman initially claimed that they would lose 7-2 in the Supreme Court but eventually relented and concurred with Jacob’s estimate of a 9-0 loss.
Greg Jacob, former chief counsel to former President Mike Pence, said that he was unconvinced that the Vice President had any legal precedent to overturn the submitted electoral vote.
“No way” founders would have put power in the hands of one person to decide who would become president of the United States, Jacob says to @January6thCmte @dcexaminer
— Max Thornberry (@Max_Thornberry) June 16, 2022
“There is just no way that the framers of the Constitution…that they would have put in the hands of one person the authority to determine who was going to be president of the United States,” said Jacobs. He also said that he told Eastman that he was wrong and that if Pence had that authority to throw out the votes, then Al Gore also would have had the power to throw out the 2000 electoral results.
Had Former Vice President Mike Pence caved to then-President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the results of the election, the country would have faced a “constitutional crisis,” one of the witnesses on Thursday testified.
Had Pence followed Trump’s orders, it “would have plunged America into what i believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a Constitutional crisis,” Judge Michael Luttig tells @January6thCmte @dcexaminer
— Max Thornberry (@Max_Thornberry) June 16, 2022
“[It] would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis,” said J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge who advised Pence that Trump’s requests were unconstitutional.
The chief legal adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence says it’s not just Republicans in 2021 who have challenged election results, noting at Thursday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing House Democrats have done so in races in which Republican presidential candidates won.
Greg Jacob, who helped Pence form a legal response to then-President Donald Trump’s pressure tactics on Pence not to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, will testify about his experience during the events of Jan. 6. His testimony includes an admonition of challenges by Democrats to manipulate election outcomes, disparaging the practice no matter from which side of the aisle it comes.
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Former Vice President Mike Pence had begun research into his role in the certification of the election results, discovering there was no “justifiable basis” to conclude he had the authority to overturn the results, said Greg Jacob, Pence’s top White House lawyer.
Pence began research in early December 2020 about the rules surrounding the Electoral Count Act, concluding with his attorneys that the Constitution did not allow “one person, particularly one person who has a direct interest in the outcome” of the election to have a direct “impact on the outcome of the election.”
“There is no justifiable basis to conclude that the Vice President has that kind of authority,” Jacob said.
Several rioters outside the Capitol threatened to drag politicians “through the streets” if former Vice President Mike Pence didn’t follow through with overturning the election results, according to videos shown by the Jan. 6 committee on Thursday.
As rioters descended on the Capitol grounds, several chanted, “Bring out Pence!” and “Hang Mike Pence!” the video shows.
“Let me be clear, Vice President Pence did the right thing that day,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), who will lead a presentation of the evidence. “He stayed true to his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.”
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol is planning to seek testimony from Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the panel’s chairman said Thursday.
Following President Joe Biden’s defeat of former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Ginni Thomas pushed then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to aid in overturning the election results, according to copies of texts obtained by multiple outlets in March.
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The Jan. 6 committee began its third hearing by lauding Vice President Mike Pence for his refusal to overturn the results of the 2020 election, noting he put himself in danger of protesters who had breached the Capitol.
In Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers will seek to provide evidence that former President Donald Trump conducted a pressure campaign to make Pence overturn the 2020 election. However, several attorneys had told the former president it was unconstitutional, but Trump continued to push his efforts, the panel says.
“There is almost no idea more unAmerican than the notion that any one person could choose the American president,” said Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson. “[Pence] knew it was illegal and he knew it was wrong … And he wouldn’t give in to Donald Trump’s scheme.”
Throughout its third hearing on Thursday, the Jan. 6 committee will seek to present evidence and materials detailing threats against Vice President Mike Pence as protesters breached the Capitol building.
The panel is set to show evidence of threats Pence received leading up to the riot after publicly rejecting former President Donald Trump‘s claims he could overturn the election results, as well as how the vice president’s security team scrambled to evacuate Pence when the building was under attack.
While protesters breached the Capitol, several chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” When Trump heard this, he responded that “our supporters have the right idea,” and maybe Pence “deserves it,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said last week.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is set to reconvene at 1 p.m. on Thursday for its third hearing.
Lawmakers will use the hearing to focus on what the panel describes as a “pressure campaign” on Vice President Mike Pence to ”unilaterally change the results of the election in the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6,” a committee aide told reporters this week.
The committee will hear from two witnesses: Greg Jacob, the former counsel to the vice president, and Michael Luttig, a retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals and an informal adviser to Pence.
Photos of former Vice President Mike Pence and his family hiding during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot were unveiled Wednesday.
ABC Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl described the images in his book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show and previously said the ex-vice president’s team did not want him to release them.
The photos were published on Wednesday, one day before the Jan. 6 committee will hold a hearing on the pressure campaign by former President Donald Trump and his allies against Pence to overturn the 2020 election results.
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Former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig on Thursday will tell the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol that the Jan. 6 attack was “a war for America’s democracy” and one “irresponsibly instigated” by then-President Donald Trump.
Luttig will tell the committee about his role as an informal adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was facing pressure from Trump and his allies to refuse to certify the election results in his capacity as president of the Senate. Pence declined to do so, citing his lack of constitutional authority to reject state election results unilaterally.
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Then-President Donald Trump knew the Capitol building had been breached by supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, at the time he posted a tweet slamming Vice President Mike Pence for not having “the courage” to overturn the election results.
The Capitol building was breached at 2:13 p.m., just 11 minutes before Trump sent the tweet criticizing his No. 2, who was inside the Capitol as protesters stormed the building, according to evidence examined by the Jan. 6 committee. That tweet, lawmakers argue, fueled anger toward Pence and painted him as guilty.
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