Mike Pence will not appeal a federal court ruling ordering him to testify in a special counsel probe into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to subvert the 2020 election, a spokesman for the former vice president said Wednesday, teeing up a historic moment in both the special counsel’s investigation and for the presidency.
Pence is poised to recount for the first time under oath his direct conversations with Trump leading up to January 6, 2021, when Trump pressured him unsuccessfully to block the 2020 election’s result and may have been acting corruptly, according to sources who have explained the judge’s ruling.
A date for Pence’s grand jury appearance is not yet known.
A former vice president has never before complied with a criminal probe subpoena to testify about the actions of a then-president, putting Pence in a position to define the powers of his former office.
Pence’s apparent decision to provide information to special counsel Jack Smith comes as he is exploring a possible challenge to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Smith has pursued interactions several top Trump administration advisers had with the then-president, but locking in Pence’s testimony would provide one of the most crucial first-hand accounts for investigators, given Trump’s heated one-on-one phone calls with Pence before the riot and how Trump’s supporters threatened the vice president during the attack of the Capitol.
In the recent ruling, Chief Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court in Washington, DC, decided Pence must testify about conversations he had with Trump ahead of the US Capitol riot.
The judge said the former vice president 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…
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