OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
5:35 PM – Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Former Vice President Mike Pence claims that he contemplated missing the congressional count of the 2020 Electoral College votes on January 6th, 2021, saying that his participation would apparently be “too hurtful” to former President Donald Trump.
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Pence, 64, revealed his last-minute worries about overseeing the transition of power during a deposition taken earlier this year by prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith’s office.
According to sources who spoke to the press, Pence told special counsel Smith’s team in April about topics that he had shared publicly regarding Trump’s team and actions leading up to the events taking place on January 6th, 2021.
A note retrieved by Smith’s team from the National Archives showed that Pence briefly contemplated not appearing for the procedures to certify the 2020 electoral votes.
Allegedly, the former vice president said that there were “too many questions” and it would otherwise be “too hurtful to my friend,” referring to Trump.
“Not feeling like I should attend electoral count,” the former vice president said. “Too many questions, too many doubts, too hurtful to my friend. Therefore I’m not going to participate in certification of election.”
However, Pence eventually executed his duty as president of the Senate and certified the Electoral College votes that validated Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
“My only higher loyalty was to God and the Constitution,” Pence allegedly said to Smith’s team.
Pence said he was “sure” that he told Trump that he had not seen any evidence of serious election fraud, according to investigators. Trump, however, persisted in asserting that the election was stolen and that he behaved “recklessly” on that day.
“When recounting a phone call with Trump on Christmas Day 2020, Pence wrote in his book that he told Trump, ‘You know, I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome’ of the election on January 6th,” the press wrote. “But Pence allegedly told Smith’s investigators that the comma should have never been placed there.”
Pence also claimed that Trump put pressure on him to denounce the election results, according to insiders familiar with Smith’s investigation who spoke with the press.
In September, Pence said in an interview that he and Trump “parted amicably,” and has not spoken with the former president since the spring of 2021.
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