A federal judge has decided that former Vice President Mike Pence must testify to a grand jury about conversations he had with Donald Trump leading up to January 6, 2021, according to multiple sources familiar with a recent federal court ruling.
But the judge said – in a ruling that remains under seal – that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to one of the sources.
The ruling from chief judge James Boasberg of the US District Court in Washington, DC, is a major win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is spearheading the Justice Department investigation. Pence still has the ability to appeal.
In the lead-up to the congressional certification vote, Pence faced enormous pressure from Trump and his allies to disrupt lawmakers’ plans to validate Joe Biden’s win. As president of the Senate, Pence was tasked with presiding over the certification proceedings.
Trump’s conversations with Pence in the days surrounding the insurrection have been of keen interest to investigators probing the attack. Though Pence declined to testify before the House January 6 committee that investigated the insurrection, people in Trump’s orbit told the committee about a heated phone call he had with Pence the day of the attack in which he lobbed insults at his vice president.
Pence and Trump did not speak during the attack on the Capitol itself, in which many of Trump’s supporters angrily sought him out, and Pence narrowly escaped the mob heading to the Senate floor.
Nicholas Luna, a former special assistant to Trump, told the committee he remembered Trump calling Pence a “wimp.” Luna said he recalled something to the effect of Trump saying, “I made the wrong decision four or five…
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