Mike Pence Could Help Bring the Coup Plotters to Justice

But he’s choosing not to.

February 17, 2023, 2:56pm

This content comes from the latest installment of our weekly Breaking the Vote newsletter out of VICE News’ D.C. bureau, tracking the ongoing efforts to undermine the democratic process in America. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday.

The perj

We can’t tell much from the release of heavily-redacted parts of the Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury’s report on the effort to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. But what we can tell definitely looks like charges are coming.

First, after hearing from 75 witnesses, the vast majority of them under oath, the grand jurors unanimously found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have stolen the election in Georgia. But Trump and his campaign already knew this… read below!

Second: Looks like perjury, y’all. From the report:

“A majority of the Grand Jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it. The Grand Jury recommends that the District Attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling.”

In the released section of the report, the jurors don’t say which witnesses they’re talking about.

For now, that’s all we really know. It seems highly likely that—after six months of testimony from dozens of witnesses including “poll workers, investigators, technical experts, and State of Georgia employees and officials, as well as from persons still claiming that such fraud took place” and 18 letters to individuals like fake electors, Rudy Giuliani, and the head of the Georgia GOP letting them know they’re targets of the investigation—people are going to be charged.

That’s up to DA Fani Willis, who, by the way, will be in front of a newly-empaneled grand jury the first week of March. They’ll be ready to hear evidence and issue indictments on any alleged crimes committed in Fulton County.

Cardi B, Waka, and Trump

If Donald Trump gets indicted in Fulton County, and even if he’s just a witness, he’s going to need a good criminal defense lawyer. Meet Drew Findling, Georgia’s celebrated “billion dollar lawyer” who’s defended hip-hop royalty, including Cardi B, Migos, Waka Flocka Flame, DaBaby, and many others. VICE News’ Greg Walters spent some quality time with Findling in Atlanta to get his take on the case, the Jan. 2 call, and being progressive while defending Trump. Don’t miss it. Also, a lot more to come from here, so stay tuned.

T.W.I.S.™ Notes

Jack Smith is going after Trump’s chief of staff, his lawyers, his Veep, even his totally-not-classified annoying light blockers (it’s a real thing). This Week in Subpoenas, can the Special Counsel really have it all?

- Zipped up Pence

Mike Pence’s grand jury subpoena finally came, and with it speculation that his negotiations with the Special Counsel had created a path for Pence to do his bit for coup accountability. But within two days, Pence made clear he’s fighting that subpoena and may try to avoid not just answering specific questions, but appearing altogether.

Pence plans to assert that the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause protects him, as President of the Senate, from being questioned by the executive branch. There’s plenty of good analysis of that (in my opinion, spurious) assertion and plenty of garbage, value-free analysis of whether Pence’s strategy to avoid telling the truth “can work.” Everyone should be a lot more focused not on the legal arguments Pence is asserting, but on the choices he’s making.

All of the parsing of legal immunities and reporting on privilege claims obscure the most important fact, which is that Mike Pence could voluntarily tell the grand jury what he knows about the attempted coup on the United States, and he’s choosing not to.

Pence is arguably one of the three most vital witnesses to the coup plot. Along with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Pence probably has the most first-hand information about Trump’s words, actions, and state of mind leading up to, on, and after, Jan. 6. Few people can say more about the evident conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding or to block the peaceful transfer of power than Pence, the guy Trump and his lawyers tried to coerce into executing its ultimate act.

Pence did the right thing on Jan. 6. And his personal safety was clearly on the line. So surely, a self-proclaimed Constitution Lover like him can identify the greater threat to the rule of law: a separation of powers question that’s touched literally no other vice president in American history, or a direct assault on Constitutional order, fair elections, and the foundation of democracy… that he witnessed in person.

What’s true about Pence was also true for all the Republican lawmakers who witnessed the coup plot, then threw down smoke bombs of misdirection to avoid January 6 committee investigators. It is entirely in his power to talk, and to tell the truth. And he could evidently do so without fear of self-incrimination. No amount of legal wrangling over the “speech and debate” clause will change the fact that if Pence doesn’t tell the truth, and help bring coup plotters to justice, it’s because he doesn’t want to.

- I lie, awake at night

Jack Smith is getting so serious about investigating possible obstruction at Mar-a-Lago that he’s going after Trump’s lawyers. Smith has been making motions asking a judge to bust through attorney-client privilege on the grounds that some of Trump’s lawyers might be parties to—or at least were used to do—crimes in the classified documents case.

Recall that attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply if the conversations in question are in furtherance of a crime or fraud. It’s the same exception that led Judge David O. Carter to release John Eastman’s emails to the January 6 committee, thanks to evidence that Eastman and Trump likely conspired to commit crimes in the coup attempt.

Meanwhile, DOJ subpoenaed Trump yet again, this time in January for a folder investigators found that was marked classified. Trump claimed this week the folder was empty, which ignores the obvious question of where the contents went. The part you can’t make up: Trump’s lawyer (a different one) brushed it all off, saying Trump displayed classified folders in a bar in Trump Tower, and another on his nightstand to shield his eyes from an annoying light on his bedside phone that was keeping him up at night.

- S’lie, Fox

Dominion Voting Systems is getting ready to go to trial in April in its $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News and its parent Fox Corp. As an appetizer, read how Fox News stars and senior executives openly acknowledged Trump lost the election in private—but then went on to relentlessly lie about it on air.

How about Tucker Carlson texting Laura Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020? “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.” What’s likely to come out at trial in Delaware is how Tucker and Ingraham (and many, many others) later turned their top-rated broadcasts into torrents of conspiracy theories about Dominion’s machines.

Meanwhile, Fox News failed to get itself off the hook in Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit this week. Now it’s in the same boat with MAGA-pumping Fox personalities Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, who are also named in the suit. Meanwhile New York’s Supreme Appellate court also tossed Rudy Giuliani and Fox’s Jeannine Pirro back onto the defendants’ pile, after a lower court had shielded them from the case.

- Inside sedition

Proud Boys sedition trial update: The lawyer for Proud Boys defendant Joe Biggs told the court that Donald Trump is a key witness in his client’s defense and that he plans to subpoena him.

A D.C. Police lieutenant regularly shared insider details on law enforcement investigations with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, a defense lawyer told a federal court this week. Now that cop is under investigation for his communications with Tarrio. Defense attorneys are trying to bolster Tarrio’s longtime claim that his organization cooperated with police.

Also in the trial this week: A girlfriend of Tarrio pleaded the Fifth when asked about the Proud Boys plan to storm government buildings. And the FBI said it used confidential informants to monitor the Proud Boys prior to Jan. 6.

MAGA, P.I.

Hey, more evidence for the “mens rea” file! Trump was told he lost the 2020 election before lying about it and sending a mob to the Capitol on Jan 6. After the election, Trump’s campaign hired an outside investigations firm to look into allegations of voter fraud and irregularities in six states. The firm, Berkeley Research Group, looked at everything from ballot harvesting to voting machines to signature fraud and beyond. By December 2020, they found nothing that could alter the election results. Trump never released the findings, and of course, in January he went on to rally his crowd around his lies.

Peters, parker

Tina Peters was about to go on trial for election tampering and fraud, and, separately, for trying to kick a cop. All that got delayed, so what’s the former Mesa County, Colo. clerk and MAGA conspiracy star been up to? Attempting to wheedle special parking privileges for herself at the Capitol in Denver? Sure, why not.

This week Peters approached a woman parking in a restricted space at the Capitol to tell her she’d be “supporting America” if she gave up her parking pass (click for photos!). Peters didn’t recognize the woman as Heidi Hess, a county elector who served as the plaintiff in the lawsuit that got Peters stripped of her election supervision duties. Hess reportedly chuckled and walked away.

“Sydney Powell is lying. Fucking b**ch.” — Fox News host Tucker Carlson, texting his producer on Nov. 18, 2020, acknowledging that claims about a stolen election were false.

Stir crazy — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has found some prison reform she can get behind. The Trumpist Jan 6. apologist says she’ll lead an investigation into conditions at the D.C. jail that’s housing Jan. 6 defendants she called “prisoners of war.” Last year 34 defendants signed a letter decrying conditions in the jail, proclaiming themselves political prisoners, and requesting transfers to Guantanamo Bay.

The fined-est things — Last month, Donald Trump and his lawyers were hit with nearly $1 million in sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit against Hillary Clinton claiming she sought to rig the 2016 election. Now you can add another $110,000 to Trump’s bill. A New York appellate court upheld more sanctions payments that Trump and his lawyers incurred when they refused to supply documents subpoenaed in the NY AG’s fraud investigation of his business.

Haley, Caesar - Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has alternated between praising, condemning, then praising Trump (after Jan. 6 she called his accomplishments “outstanding”). But now that she’s challenging him for the GOP presidential nomination, Haley picked up a big MAGA endorsement. Rep. Ralph Norman—the Trumpist S.C. Republican most famous for urging the White House to keep Trump in power using “Marshall law”—came out for her this week.