Incendiary tweets, a threatening call, a fiery speech… The commission of inquiry into the assault on the Capitol detailed, Thursday, June 16, during a hearing, the numerous pressures exerted by Donald Trump on his vice-president, Mike Pence, in an attempt to prevent him from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory on January 6, 2021.
“The president was repeatedly told that the vice president could not change the outcome of the election. But he, despite everything, publicly pressured Mike Pence to do just that.”said the elected Democrat Pete Aguilar, during a detailed presentation.
After almost a year of investigation, the group of elected officials seeks to show that Donald Trump’s rejection of the November 2020 presidential results was not just bad loser coquetry, but the essential component of a strategy. thoughtful to keep power. This quickly focused on the ceremony of certification of the results of the election by Vice President Mike Pence before Congress on January 6, 2021, in principle a simple formality.
The commission of inquiry thus unveiled the precise plan drawn up by lawyer John Eastman for Donald Trump in December 2020, aimed at exploiting loopholes in the electoral count law and blocking Joe Biden’s accession to the White House. . Under pressure, Mike Pence then turned to several legal experts who had assured him that he had no legal leeway and had to certify Joe Biden’s victory at all costs.
“Otherwise, I will be extremely disappointed”
“I believe that if Vice President Pence had obeyed the orders of his President (…)it would have plunged America into a revolution in the midst of a constitutional crisis”warned retired federal judge Michael Luttig in a solemn voice before the commission.
Supporting video testimony, the group of elected officials also revealed a telephone exchange between Donald Trump and his vice-president on the morning of January 6, 2021. “The conversation was tense”, said Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, who was in the Oval Office at the time of the call. Other ex-advisers to Donald Trump have reported that the president has hurled several insults at Mr Pence.
An hour later, the president tried one last time to force the hand on his right arm, appearing before a crowd of Trumpists, gathered in Washington in the freezing cold. “Mike Pence, I hope you will fight for the good of our country, of our Constitution. Otherwise, I will be extremely disappointed”then launches the Republican billionaire, in a serious tone.
Calls to ‘hang Mike Pence’
A few minutes later, Mike Pence publishes a letter in which he affirms that he will not comply with the pressures of the president. At the same time, pro-Trump protesters are beginning to crowd around Congress, images that have circulated around the world. The certification session is abruptly interrupted.
While the vice-president and the elected representatives of Congress are evacuated from the hemicycle, Donald Trump is annoyed on Twitter that Mike Pence has not “did not have the courage to do what was necessary to protect the country”. In the crowd that stormed Congress, Trumpists call for “hang Mike Pence”.
Taking refuge in an underground passage, the vice-president remained within the precincts of the Capitol throughout the duration of the assault, with demonstrators sometimes only at a distance. “dozen yards from him”, the commission revealed on Thursday. After a few hours, calm finally returned to the American capital. From the House of Representatives, the Vice President promises that “those who have sown discord” do not have ” won “ and officially certifies the election of Joe Biden.
After long months of silence, Mike Pence spoke publicly about the horror of January 6, during a speech in Florida in mid-February. “President Trump said I had the right to reverse the election, but President Trump is wrong”he said, recording his final break with the former businessman, who still maintains the opposite.