Former Vice President Mike Pence testified in front of a federal grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump on Thursday. He spoke on his role in the aftermath of the 2020 election, according to a report.
The testimony in a Washington, D.C., courthouse marks the first time in modern history that a vice president has been compelled to testify about the president he served under, and he is expected to testify about conversations he had with Trump leading up to the Jan. 6 riot, according to CNN.
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A federal judge previously ruled that Pence could be compelled to disclose conversations the two men had about the riot or efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Special counsel Jack Smith has sought to question Pence under oath given his proximity to Trump during the presidency, but the former president attempted to shield Pence by claiming executive privilege over the conversations. However, Pence has openly disclosed parts of the conversations in his memoir, which was released last year.
Trump allegedly warned Pence that hundreds of thousands of people would “hate his guts” because he was “too honest” to overturn the 2020 election results, according to the book.
Pence also said that he asked his general counsel for a briefing on the Electoral Count Act after Trump “mentioned challenging the election results in the House of Representatives for the first time” in a Dec. 5 phone call. He then urged Trump to listen to the White House counsel team’s advice instead of outside lawyers.
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Several of Pence’s advisers, including his chief of staff and chief counsel, have also offered testimony to investigators. Other officials have, too, including Ivanka Trump’s former chief of staff Julie Radford, who said she told the former first daughter that “her dad had just had an upsetting conversation with the vice president.”
Although Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg determined that Pence must testify in front of the grand jury, he allowed certain limits to the topics prosecutors could question him about.
