Capitol rioters who chanted “hang Mike Pence” appeared to be acting on orders “from above,” according to a member of the Jan. 6 committee.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who led the second impeachment against former President Donald Trump, suggested this week that former Vice President Mike Pence is the nexus at which investigators believe they can nail down a connection between the violent mob and those on the inside working to overturn the 2020 election results.
“It just struck me as so bizarre that you would have a pro-Trump mob outside, chanting against the vice president, and how would they know that Mike Pence was now the proper target of their wrath? How would they know that they were supposed to be mobilizing this effort against the vice president?” Raskin said during an interview on MSNBC.
“Those orders were clearly coming from above,” the congressman added. “And it went through not just the political coup side of the operation but the violent insurrection side of the operation.”
On Jan. 6, Pence was at the Capitol to preside over the counting of electoral votes. Despite pressure from Trump, Pence did not try to send the results back to certain states Trump lost in November over claims of election fraud. In fact, he sent a letter to Congress saying he did not have the power to reject Electoral College votes, dealing a blow to Trump’s hopes to deny a presidential victory to Joe Biden.
PENCE SAYS TRUMP IS ‘WRONG’: ‘I HAD NO RIGHT TO OVERTURN THE ELECTION’
When rioters stormed the complex, Pence’s Secret Service detail moved him, along with his wife and their daughter, Charlotte, first to his ceremonial office and then to a secure underground area where the vice president refused to get in a vehicle and leave the Capitol.
During the MSNBC interview, Raskin was expounding upon statements he made at an event last week.
Pence “uttered what I think are the six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far: ‘I’m not getting in that car'” until the Electoral College votes were counted, Raskin said last Thursday. “He knew exactly what this inside coup they had planned for was going to do,” the congressman added.
The select Jan. 6 committee is investigating whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy, tying the riot to the push to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory, sources told the Guardian for a report published earlier this year. The news outlet reported this month that text messages show the Oath Keepers were in touch with the Proud Boys before the Capitol riot, adding credence to the theory that there was a coordinated assault. Two Oath Keepers have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy related to Jan. 6.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff, was warned by a White House official before the riot that events planned for Jan. 6 could turn violent, according to testimony cited by the panel. Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant in the Trump White House, said she was not sure what Meadows did with the information.
Trump has consistently disparaged the Jan. 6 panel as a political witch hunt. “The Unselect Committee’s sole goal is to try to prevent President Trump, who is leading by large margins in every poll, from running again for president, if I so choose,” he said in a statement last month.
