Mr. Mike Pence who is the former Vice President of the United States has testified before a federal grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that to talk about the private appearance before the grand jury, the person asked for anonymity. The US Department of Justice’s inquiry has reached a turning point with Pence’s appearance in Washington, DC, where he is questioning the president whom he once devotedly served.
It probably provides prosecutors with a crucial first-person description of several exchanges and occasions in the days before the deadly uprising at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. It also has important political ramifications because Pence has hinted that he would challenge Republican front-runner Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
The testimony came hours after a federal appeals court rejected a request by Trump’s attorneys to have Pence’s attendance blocked in a sealed order.
Pence was subpoenaed to testify earlier this year but Trump’s lawyers objected, citing executive privilege concerns.
Lawyers for Pence had raised their own, more narrow challenge to the subpoena.
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They argued that because Pence was serving in his capacity as president of the Senate as the electoral votes were being counted in Congress, he was protected from being forced to testify about that process. The lawyers cited the US Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which is intended to protect members of Congress from being questioned about official legislative acts.
A judge in March refused to block Pence’s appearance, though he did side with the former vice president’s constitutional claims that he could not be forced to answer questions about anything related to his role presiding over the Senate’s certification of votes on January 6.
‘We’ll obey the law, we’ll tell the truth,” Pence said in an interview with the CBS News show ‘Face the Nation’ that aired Sunday. ‘And the story that I’ve been telling the American people all across the country, the story that I wrote in the pages of my memoir, that’ll be the story I tell in that setting.’
Pence has spoken extensively about Trump’s pressure campaign, urging him to reject Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory in the days leading up to January 6, including in his book, So Help Me God.
Pence, as vice president, had a ceremonial role overseeing Congress’s count of the Electoral College vote, but he did not have the power to affect the results, despite Trump’s contention otherwise.
Pence, a former Indiana governor, and congressman, has said that Trump endangered his family and everyone else who was at the Capitol that day and history will hold him “accountable”.