In response, Trump reportedly told Pence, “You’re too honest.” 1, 2021: Trump called Pence and “berated him because he had learned that the Vice President had opposed a lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that, at the certification, the Vice President had the authority to reject or return votes to the states under the Constitution.” Pence told Trump he didn’t think there was any constitutional authority for that. 29, 2020: Citing Pence’s “contemporaneous notes,” the indictment says Trump “falsely told the Vice President that the ‘Justice Dept finding major infractions.'” Pence responded, as he had in previous conversations, “You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome.”ĭec.
25, 2020: When Pence called Trump to wish him a Merry Christmas, Trump requested that Pence reject electoral votes on Jan. The same day, the indictment says, co-conspirator 2 (whom we have identified as John Eastman, a Trump attorney) “circulated a two-page memorandum outlining a plan for the Vice President to unlawfully declare the Defendant the certified winner of the presidential election.” In the memo, Eastman “transmitted two slates of electors and proposed that the Vice President announce that ‘because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States.'” The indictment says the Eastman memo then “proposed steps that he acknowledged violated the ECA ” and ended with, “Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected.” It was a position, the indictment says, that contradicted a position Eastman himself had staked out just two months prior.ĭec. 23, 2020: Trump retweeted (and later deleted) a memo titled “Operation ‘PENCE’ CARD,” which, the indictment states, “falsely asserted that the Vice President could, among other things, unilaterally disqualify legitimate electors from six targeted states.” Here are some of the related events described in the indictment leading up to Jan. When that failed, the Defendant attempted to use a crowd of supporters that he had gathered in Washington, D.C., to pressure the Vice President to fraudulently alter the election results.” The Defendant did this first by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to convince the Vice President to accept the Defendant’s fraudulent electors, reject legitimate electoral votes, or send legitimate electoral votes to state legislatures for review rather than count them.
Pence is featured prominently throughout the 45-page indictment, but there are seven and a half pages that specifically deal with “The Defendant’s Attempts to Enlist the Vice President to Fraudulently Alter the Election Results at the January 6 Certification Proceeding.” That section relies heavily on interviews Pence provided to federal prosecutors, and the indictment references “contemporaneous notes” Pence kept to memorialize some events and conversations.Īccording to the indictment, “As the January 6 congressional certification proceeding approached and other efforts to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function failed, the Defendant sought to enlist the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the certification to fraudulently alter the election results. I had no authority to do that.”įor those who might doubt him, Pence urged them to “read the indictment.” “President Trump demanded that I use my authority as vice president presiding over the count of the Electoral College to essentially overturn the election by returning or literally rejecting votes. “I think it’s important that the American people know what happened in the days before January 6,” Pence said. 2, former Vice President Mike Pence called that claim “completely false.” Pence said Trump and his “gaggle of crackpot lawyers” asked him “to literally reject votes.” In an interview hours after former President Donald Trump was indicted for an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election, one of his attorneys said that all Trump had ultimately asked his vice president to do was “simply pause” the Electoral College count at the U.S.
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