Pence Breaks Silence After Being Forced To Testify

Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Following a federal judge’s ruling that former Vice President Pence would be required to testify before the federal grand jury investigating former President Trump’s actions on January 6th, 2021, Pence noted that he had “nothing to hide.”

During an interview with Newsmax on Tuesday, Pence specifically noted that he had “nothing to hide” and that all he has to do is uphold the Constitution which is what he had done on the day of the Capitol attack.

Pence had previously tried to fight off the subpoena sent by special counsel Jack Smith, who is currently overseeing two separate probes into Trump. In his defense, Pence had stated that he was protected by the Constitution’s “speech and debate” clause from having to testify about his duties and actions on January 6th. Trump has also fought back against Pence’s subpoena claiming that the conversations between them had been protected by executive privilege.

A judge, however, ruled that executive privilege did not entirely protect Pence against testifying. The court did agree that Pence would not need to answer any questions that relate to his role as president of the Senate, which would limit the number of questions he could have to answer about his own actions on that day.

Still, Pence will need to answer all questions that relate to any criminality by Trump.

Pence said in his statement stated that he was “pleased that the court accepted our argument and recognized that the Constitution’s provision about speech and debate does apply to the vice president.”