Pence’s role opposing Trump scheme is focus on Day 3 of Jan. 6 hearings: live updates
Pence’s role opposing Trump scheme is focus on Day 3 of Jan. 6 hearings: live updates
June 16, 2022
Hawaii
WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to single-handedly reject electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, as former President Donald Trump pressured him to do, will be the subject of the Thursday House hearing investigating the Capitol attack.
🔍Who is expected to testify?: Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob, and retired federal appeals judge Michael Luttig. Jacob and Luttig each said a Trump attorney’s plan to overturn the election was unsupported by the law.
📝 Be ready to hear the name John Eastman. Who is he?: Trump’s lawyer, John Eastman, drafted the plan for Pence to reject votes from seven states President Joe Biden won, which could have thrown the 2020 election to Trump. But legal experts said there was no legal justification for the plan.
🗳️ Pence in Ohio today: Pence will travel to Cincinnati on Thursday alongside Gov. Mike DeWine for a roundtable with members of Ohio’s natural gas and oil industry.
Pence: electoral count rejection ‘illegal’: Marc Short, chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, says Pence told former President Donald Trump “many times” that any plan to have Pence reject electoral votes was illegal.
The latest:
What to expect out of today’s hearing:Trump raised millions to fight election fraud before Jan. 6. Here’s how that money was spent.
House Jan. 6 panel discusses seeking testimony from Ginni Thomas about texts with Mark Meadows, but makes no decision
But the committee recently obtained emails between Ginni Thomas and John Eastman, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump who developed the plan for Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly tip the election in favor of Trump, according to The Washington Post.
“We think it’s time that we, at some point, invite her to come talk to the committee,” Thompson told reporters, according to Axios reporter Andrew Solender.
– Bart Jansen
Trump raised money for ‘election defense’ and gave millions to his allies
A fundraising committee affiliated with former President Donald Trump raised millions of dollars for an “Official Election Defense Fund,” but the Jan. 6 committee said in its hearing Monday that it found no evidence that fund existed.
Most of the money went to a leadership fund called Save America that gave millions to Trump allies. For example, nonprofits affiliated with advisor Kellyanne Conway and chief of staff Mark Meadows received $1 million each. Campaigns for candidates running to unseat Trump foes in Congress received $5,000 each.
E. Danya Perry, who served as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 2002 to 2013, said the case has the building blocks of a “pretty clear cut” case of wire fraud, a subject that is “bread and butter for federal prosecutors.”
– Erin Mansfield
Where did Trump’s ‘Election Defense Fund’ money go?:Trump raised millions to fight election fraud before Jan. 6. Here’s how that money was spent.
Read more on the document here.
– Will Carless
Pence in Cincinnati, Ohio, as Jan. 6 hearing focuses on him
Former Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Cincinnati on Thursday alongside Gov. Mike DeWine for a roundtable with members of Ohio’s natural gas and oil industry.
On the same day, the House Jan. 6 committee is expected to examine how former President Donald Trump pressured Pence to overturn the 2020 election.
The roundtable won’t be open to the public. It will be hosted by the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program. Pence will also be in town to raise money for Rep. Steve Chabot’s reelection campaign at the home of Nancy and David Aichholz, according to an invitation sent out by the GOP.
– Scott Wartman, Cincinnati Enquirer
Pence in Ohio: Mike Pence in Cincinnati today as Jan. 6 committee looks at how Trump pressured him
scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ET.
here on USATODAY.com. The hearings have also been televised on C-Span and cable news networks.Who has been subpoenaed so far by the Jan. 6 committee?
One Trump lawyer to another: Get a great criminal defense lawyer
In a promotional tweet Tuesday for the hearing, the committee released video of Eric Hershmann, one of Trump’s lawyers, who described warning Eastman the day after the riot he should find a “great” defense lawyer.
Eastman had contacted Hershmann to chat about Georgia election results because he couldn’t reach other Trump aides. Hershmann questioned Eastman’s sanity and told him the only phrase he wanted to hear from Eastman from then on was “orderly transition” to the Biden administration.
“Eventually he said, ‘Orderly transition,'” Hershmann said. “I said, ‘Good, John. Now I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life. Get a great f-ing criminal defense lawyer. You’re going to need it.’ Then I hung up on him.”
How Trump’s PAC spent money:Trump raised millions to fight election fraud before Jan. 6. Here’s how that money was spent.
Greg Jacob, Pence’s counsel who researched the vice president’s power to reject electors when Congress counts presidential votes, told Eastman in an email Jan. 6, 2021, at 2:14 p.m. that his advice was “essentially entirely made up,” according to court records.
In an Oval Office meeting with Trump on Jan. 4, Pence stressed his “immediate instinct that there is no way that one person could be entrusted by the Framers to exercise that authority,” according to Jacob.
As the mob ransacked the Capitol two days later and Pence evacuated the Senate chamber, Jacob emailed Eastman to say “thanks to your bull—-, we are now under siege,” according to court records.
Bill Barr and Donald Trump:Bill Barr’s complicated relationship with Donald Trump: From vital advocate to damning witness
Who is Michael Luttig? Retired judge to testify
Eastman clerked for Michael Luttig, a retired judge for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who was rumored as a potential Supreme Court nominee during President George W. Bush’s administration.
The same day Trump pressured Pence and Jacob in the Oval Office, Pence’s personal lawyer, Richard Cullen, called Luttig to ask about Eastman. Luttig tweeted his disagreement with Eastman’s argument the morning of Jan. 5.
“The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast,” Luttig said. “The Constitution does not empower the Vice President to alter in any way the votes that have been cast, either by rejecting certain of them or otherwise.”
Jan. 6 committee hearing schedule:Here’s what to expect at upcoming Jan. 6 hearings
