Former Vice President Mike Pence has responded to special counsel Jack Smith’s latest indictment of former President Donald Trump, asserting that his onetime boss had “demanded [he] choose between him and the Constitution.”
“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” Mr. Pence said in his statement.
“I chose the Constitution and I always will,” he said.
Like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose statement has met with criticism from some conservatives for being insufficiently vigorous in defense of Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence indicated that he hadn’t read the indictment in detail.
Mr. Smith’s indictment alleges that the former president conspired to defraud the United States and to deprive citizens of the “free exercise” of constitutional rights—in this case, “the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.”
In addition, Mr. Trump is accused of both conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding—the electoral vote certification on Jan. 6, 2021—and of attempting to obstruct, and obstructing, that official proceeding.
Mr. Pence’s alleged actions in connection with the contested 2020 election recur throughout the indictment, as do Mr. Trump’s alleged responses to those actions.
Notably, the indictment claims that when Mr. Pence told Mr. Trump that he wouldn’t proceed with the president’s plan to block electoral vote certification on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump warned that he “would have to publicly criticize [Pence].”
“Upon learning of this, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff was concerned for the Vice President’s safety and alerted the head of the Vice President’s Secret Service detail,” the indictment states.
Contrary to what’s claimed in some initial posts on social media, Mr. Pence’s chief of staff was Marc Short, not Mark Meadows.
In addition, the indictment alleges that Mr. Trump told Mr. Pence that he was “too honest” when Mr. Pence said he lacked the authority as vice president to dispute results from the Electoral College.
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