Mr. Vice President, please tell America your story of January 6th
The former vice president has a historic story to tell, I invite him to talk about it here at 24sight News
WASHINGTON _ Former vice president Mike Pence has talked about January 6th quite a bit, on the campaign trail, in his autobiography “So Help Me God”, on college campuses across the country. But the unsealed criminal indictment against former president Donald Trump, revealed Wednesday, shows that Pence has a lot more to say about that historic day.
So, speaking as the reporter who wrote the book on him, “Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House” and someone who has covered him for 13 years now, I invite Pence to tell the whole story in public:
Mr. Vice President, please come on the 24sight pod and tell America your story of January 6th.
You’ve done more than a few things that are brave indeed in the current climate of American politics, standing up to your then boss and colleague, President Trump, in private and repeatedly telling him the truth — when many others would not — we lost the election, accept it and move on, perhaps even run again. As insurrectionists breached the Capitol, seeking you in particular after the president tweeted a target on your back, you stood firm in the vice president’s Senate office with your family for as long as you could until Secret Service demanded you move to a secure location.
From that location you refused an effort by the Secret Service to drive you from the Capitol, you called your own colleagues in the administration to request backup for the besieged Capitol police and protection for all taking cover inside the Capitol. And when at last the rioting abated, you returned to the Senate and presided over the certification of the 2020 election.
And then you campaigned on those historic acts, seeking the nomination of a Republican Party, which, had it been a decade ago, probably would have rewarded that — but at this time wanted nothing to do with it.
“The last thing the framers of the Constitution would have intended would be to confer unchecked authority on one individual,” you wrote in your autobiography, after having counsel review the role of the vice president in election certifications. “The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. Frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
But January 6th is a singular day in American history, the first time that a sitting president attempted to subvert the election results and stage a coup. And given all that we have seen since then (the latest being your replacement on the Trump ticket attempting to whitewash the insurrection as a “peaceful” occurrence) it seems that if Trump gets back in office, the chance to present your story as testimony before a jury will vanish.
Many of your former colleagues and staffers have testified publicly about that day. (Counsel Greg Jacob’s testimony before the House January 6th Committee in 2022 gave me chills, sitting in the hearing room, as Rep. Pete Aguilar asked him if he knew that the rioters came within feet of attacking your entourage.)
As a longtime reporter, I don’t like submitting questions in advance of any interview, but I will here because this is exceptional:
How did you feel in the moment on January 6th, as you were alerted that rioters had breached the Capitol?
You spent a lot of time privately, one-on-one with President Trump, keeping a tradition of confidentiality between America’s most powerful principals — is the man who pushed you relentlessly to violate your oath to the Constitution the same person you worked with for four years prior? Did he change after the 2020 election?
Why was then-President Trump seemingly catatonic in the White House as his staff alerted him of the violence at Capitol, and that you were in danger (among others)?
If, as a student of history, you understood the role of the vice president in election certifications, why was it necessary to have your staff conduct an extensive review of that role?
What have your conversations with former president Trump been like since you both left office?
Have you ever seen evidence of widespread voting fraud?
Through much of December 2020, even on Christmas Day, you write of your promises to Trump and the Republican congressmen seeking to overturn the election results that you would hear all valid objections as the presiding officer. Did you believe then, after the court cases challenging the results had been dismissed, that the expected objections would result in a different outcome, finding that you and the former president had indeed won?
Did you take the president’s calls and meetings, like the one on New Year’s Day when he said that “hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts” as threats? Bullying? Or venting his anger and frustration?
Your fundamental constitutional and legal argument surrounding the certification was that you and any other vice president has no clear power in deciding which electors are counted, the president and his outside legal team seemed emphatic that you had absolute power — taking your reading of it, how did you become such a pivotal player on January 6th?
What did you mean when you told your agent, Tim Giebels, you wouldn’t get in the motorcade because you knew he wasn’t driving that car? You wrote in your book that someone else had power over that car, who?
What would have happened if you had left the Capitol on January 6th?
What does Jeremiah 29:11 mean? What is the message and guidance you take from it?
When you prayed then (and now) for guidance from God, how does it feel? How do you know when you have heard the response?
Thanks much for your consideration, I hope the college classes are fun and refreshing. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Tom LoBianco
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5081198/mike-pence-duty-january-6
I hope you get a response. 🤞