Department of Justice urges Mike Pence to testify against Donald Trump

Mike Pence has so far refused to testify to the House committee investigating the January 6 riot, declaring it too partisan.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is being urged to testify against Donald Trump. Picture: AFP.

The US justice department has asked Mike Pence, the former vice-president, to testify in its investigation into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Pence, who is expected to stand against Trump for the White House in 2024, has refused to testify to the House committee investigating the January 6 riot at the Capitol last year, declaring it too partisan.

He told CBS: “I believe it will establish a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a vice-president of the United States to speak about deliberations that took place at the White House.”

The department’s approach to Pence was reported by The New York Times, which said that he recognised that the request to help its criminal inquiry could not be dismissed in the same way.

Pence is seen as a critical witness in the investigation of Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat to Joe Biden and the build-up to the riot, in which supporters of the former president forced their way into the Capitol.

Two of Pence’s senior advisers – his chief of staff, Marc Short, and legal counsel, Greg Jacob – appeared before a grand jury under subpoena during the summer.

Trump heaped pressure on Pence to halt certification of the election on January 6. When the vice-president refused, Trump issued an incendiary tweet to his supporters as the violence at the Capitol grew, declaring that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done”.

The vice-president was rushed off the Senate floor by security when Trump supporters broke in, chanting “Hang Mike Pence”.

In a memoir published last week, Pence detailed Trump’s campaign to press him into subverting the election result. On a tour to promote the book, he has made clear he blames the former president for the riot, telling ABC News that Trump’s infamous tweet “angered me”.

“The president’s words were reckless,” he said. “It’s clear he decided to be part of the problem.”

Wary of alienating Republican supporters, Pence has sidestepped questions on whether Trump’s actions were criminal, instead blaming the then president’s outside lawyers.

While he strikes this awkward balance, Pence has appeared at think tanks in recent weeks, laying out his vision for orthodox conservative values. The latest polls show him trailing far behind Trump and his strongest challenger, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, in a hypothetical Republican primary. Other pretenders are also circling, hoping that Trump’s legal troubles force him out of the race.

The Times