Former Vice President Mike Pence said he would “consider” coming before the House select committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
“If invited, I’d consider it,” Pence said at Politics & Eggs in Manchester, New Hampshire.
If asked to speak before House investigators, the former vice president said he would “reflect on my unique status as vice president.”
“It’d be rare for a VP to be called to Capitol Hill, but I don’t want to pre-judge,” he remarked. “We’d consider any formal invitation, but my first job is to maintain my oath and the Constitution’s foundation for governance.”
A committee spokesperson didn’t comment on Pence’s comments.
The committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has heard from numerous Pence aides, including his former chief of staff Marc Short and chief counsel Greg Jacob.
They testified about the pressure campaign waged on Pence to unilaterally reject Electoral College votes from key states former President Donald Trump lost.
The committee hasn’t invited Pence to attend. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican on the panel, said in May he would “love” for Pence to appear voluntarily. In July, he indicated legislators were still contemplating whether to require his testimony.
Pence said Jan. 6 was “tragic” and he was “angered” to see the Capitol “ransacked.” He slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for rejecting several GOP legislators suggested by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to join on the select committee.
The group conducted eight public sessions over the summer to draw out Trump’s plan to obstruct the transfer of power after the 2020 election.
The committee will release an initial report in the autumn and hold more hearings when its members conduct closed-door interviews.
At the heart of Trump’s campaign to persuade Pence was a hypothesis advocated by conservative lawyer John Eastman that the vice president could single-handedly throw away electoral votes or send slates of electors back to state legislatures on Jan. 6.
The then-vice president refused to go along with Trump and Eastman’s scheme, and he and his senior advisers reminded the former president and his friends the notion had no validity in the Constitution or federal law.
Trump and Pence had a “heated” chat on Jan. 6 after Pence rejected Trump’s offer. Aides said Trump called Pence a “wimp” and “the ‘p’ word.”
The former president also criticised Pence on Jan. 6 for not rejecting state electors, angering Trump’s supporters at the Capitol.
After rioters invaded the Capitol, the then-vice president was removed from the Senate. The committee claimed Pence got within 40 feet of the crowd but refused to depart in a vehicle. Instead, he was confined in a safe place for more than four hours until the building was vacated and the joint session reconvened to confirm Mr. Biden’s triumph.
Pence also discussed the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last week. The FBI is investigating Trump for suspected breaches of three federal laws, according to the released search warrant and list of goods. Federal law enforcement seized 11 sets of classified papers, including “secret,” “top secret,” “confidential,” and “classified/TS/SCI”
Pence was “very distressed” to discover a search warrant was executed at a previous president’s home and called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to explain why.
“Never before in American history has a former president’s home been searched with a warrant, and after four years of FBI politicisation, the public deserves to know why,” he added. “Unprecedented action demands openness.”
Pence cautioned Republicans who are blasting the FBI over the Mar-a-Lago search of a “increase in violent threats” to law enforcement employees and institutions.
“Stop attacking the FBI! Defunding the FBI is as bad as defunding the police “ex-VP remarked. “We need to find out what occurred, let the facts play out, and comfort the American people in the integrity of our justice system. The appearance of politics having a factor in Justice Department decisions requires unprecedented openness.”