The January 6 committee hearing on Thursday, which documented President Donald Trump’s relentless but unsuccessful campaign to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to help reverse his defeat in the 2020 election, sparked tumultuous discussions of constitutional law and unstable Several times between images swung wildly. The threats and violence that prompted Trump’s attacks on Pence.
But at the heart of the committee’s presentation was a simple story.
Weeks before the mob attack on the Capitol, Trump joined forces with a law professor named John Eastman, who had been advocating a theory that Pence, in his role as Senate president, could influence the outcome of the election. had the power to change — or at least delay the validation of, Trump’s defeat.
With this questionable legal nudge, and his other avenues for keeping power locked down, Trump publicly pushed and pushed Pence on January 6, prompting his supporters to instigate and spark a riot at the Capitol.
Pence – backed by his own advisers and other legal experts – opposed Trump from the moment the idea came up.
Here are four takeaways from Thursday’s hearing.
Even Eastman doubted the legitimacy of his plan, and he conveyed it to Trump.
Trump proceeded with the pressure campaign on Pence, even though Eastman, former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and professor of law at Chapman University, was less than certain about the legitimacy and political viability of his plan.
For example, the committee submitted an email that Eastman wrote in the early stages of the plan, in which he stated that the idea of having lawmakers in pro-Trump states was an alternative option for voters to give Pence a reason to dispute the results. Drafts the slate. Was “Dead on Arrival in Congress”.
Eastman also acknowledged in a private conversation with Pence’s top lawyer, Greg Jacob, that if the Supreme Court ever had to rule on the legitimacy of a vice president to decide the outcome of an election on its own, the court would be unanimous. Will vote to throw the matter out. , Jacob testified.
But more important, Jacob told the committee in a videotaped statement—snippets of which were played during the hearing—that Eastman admitted in Trump’s presence that the plan to pressure Pence violated an 1887 law called the Electoral Commission. Known as the Enumeration Act. According to Jacob, Eastman acknowledged the illegality of the plan to Trump on January 4, 2021, when Pence was to oversee the election’s certification.
That important admission by Eastman was highlighted by Representative Liz Cheney, R-Voice, the committee’s vice chairman, who has long suggested that Trump could be charged with a federal crime for the role he played in counting votes. played a role in obstructing the certification of 6 January.
If prosecutors can prove that both Trump and Eastman already knew that the plan to pressure Pence would violate the law, it could be an important piece of evidence that suggests intent, should the Justice Department. Decides to pursue criminal case against either of them.
Cheney and an aide on the committee, Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., both noted that a federal judge had already ruled in a related lawsuit that Trump and Eastman had committed a fraud and obstructing election certification. Conspired together. against the United States.
In his ruling from March, Judge David O’Carter wrote that “the illegality of the plan was clear,” calling it a “coup in search of legal principle.”
Eastman was apparently concerned enough about being prosecuted for his role that he inquired about receiving a pardon before Trump left office a few days after January 6.
Pence never shied away from reprimanding Trump.
If one thing became clear at the committee hearings, it was that Pence, despite his history of loyalty to Trump, never believed he had the power to decide the election—and almost never in Trump’s orbit. No one else did either.
According to Jacob, Pence’s “first instinct” was to dismiss the notion that Trump’s aides at the time were open to the idea. Jacob told the committee that even during his first meeting with Pence about Eastman’s plan, the vice president was horrified, adding that he did not believe the founders who “hated the power of concentration” would ever agree to this. That a person—especially one who is interested in the outcome—could exercise sole discretion over the election.
It turned out that Pence enjoyed widespread support both inside and outside the White House. The committee, in its presentation, offered a long list of aides and advisers who seemed to disagree with Trump and Eastman.
In a recorded statement, Pence’s chief of staff, Mark Short, said Trump’s own chief of staff Mark Meadows agreed that the vice president did not have a broad or decisive role in determining election results.
Another top Trump aide, Jason Miller, told the committee in his own recorded statement that Trump’s White House counsel Pat Cipollone thought Eastman’s plan was “naughty.” He said that Sean Hannity, a very supporter of Trump’s Fox News, felt Pence had done the “right thing” by dismissing it.
Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was also skeptical of Eastman’s legal doctrine, according to former White House top lawyer Eric Hershman. But, as Hershman noted in a recorded statement, that didn’t stop Giuliani from publicly publicizing Eastman’s plan on January 6.
The Eastman Plan had no legal basis.
At times, the hearing didn’t seem like a law school seminar on the election process, with a highly technical discussion of how the vice president’s role fits into the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Counting Act on January 6.
Those discussions were led by J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge, revered by conservatives. The morning before the Capitol attack, Lutig posted a thread of messages on Twitter saying that Pence had no power to use his discretion in deciding the election.
“The sole responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the votes of the Electoral College,” Luttig wrote.
He added: “The Constitution does not empower the Vice-President to alter the votes in any way, either by rejecting some of them or otherwise.”
In his testimony on Thursday, Luttig denounced Eastman’s plan as “constitutional mischief,” adding that if Pence had gone along with it, it would have “considered America a revolution within a constitutional crisis.” “
The pressure campaign helped fuel the violence.
Trump’s public call to carry out Eastman’s plan sparked hopes among his supporters that the vice president would do so — and ignited fury when he didn’t.
Short, Pence’s chief of staff, became concerned enough about the potential for Trump supporters to turn against the vice president that he alerted the Secret Service on Jan.
According to testimony gathered by the committee, Pence continued to rebuke Trump after a call from the president on the morning of January 6, in which Trump called him a “wimp” and worse.
At 2.24 p.m. on January 6, Trump sent out a tweet that said, “Mike Pence didn’t have the guts to do what should have been done.”
A Trump aide told the committee that at the time it felt like Trump was “putting petrol on the fire.” Immediately, the committee said, there was a significant increase in crowds inside and outside the Capitol, some of whom began to chant, “Hang on to Mike Pence!”
Pence was removed from his ceremonial office in the Senate and taken to a safe place, barely escaping from the angry mob that ransacked the building. When Aguilar told Jacob, who was with Pence at the Capitol that day, that members of the crowd were only 40 feet away from him, he seemed bewildered.
“When we left, I could hear the noise of rioters in the building,” Jacob said. “But I don’t think I knew they were so close.”