On Wednesday, former Vice President Mike Pence urged on Republicans to stop criticising the nation’s top law enforcement organisations in response to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation of Mar-a-Lago, the property of former President Donald J. Trump in Palm Beach, Florida.
In response to the search that took place on August 8 as part of an inquiry into how Mr. Trump handled sensitive information, Republicans in Congress, including members of the leadership, have expressed their indignation. Some politicians have called for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to be “defunded” or “dismantled,” even as more moderate voices have reprimanded their colleagues for their language.
Mr. Pence said this when he was speaking at a campaign event in New Hampshire. He added that Republicans are able to hold the Justice Department and the F.B.I. responsible for their judgments “without assaulting the rank-and-file law enforcement professionals.”
Mr. Pence continued by stating that “Our party stands with the men and women who stand on the thin blue line at the federal, state, and local levels,” and that “these assaults on the F.B.I. must end.” “Those to defund the FBI are just as misguided as calls to defund the police,” the author writes.
It is clear from Mr. Pence’s words that he is prepared to distance himself from the faction of the Republican Party that is the most devoted to Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence looks to be preparing himself to run for president in 2020. They also demonstrate the political difficulties that come with attacking a law enforcement organisation, especially for a party that purports to brand itself as a supporter of law and order in the public eye.
As threats were made against law enforcement, requests developed for a more cautious approach to be taken. After the search at Mar-a-Lago, the Department of Homeland Security issued an intelligence bulletin to law enforcement agencies across the country that warned of “an increase in threats office in Cincinnati, and the Department of Homeland Security also warned of “an increase in threats and acts of violence.”
Mr. Pence has only infrequently addressed the public regarding how he would react to a request from the committee to be interviewed; however, his attorneys started having conversations with the panel as early as the summer of last year, indicating that they were uncertain as to what Mr. Pence might do.
In the most recent weeks, the panel has been considering what should be done with some of the more high-profile possible witnesses, such as Mr. Pence or Mr. Trump himself. However, legislators have not come to a resolution about how to move with either man.
The panel had initially believed that both men would fight attempts to get them to testify, and some lawmakers were concerned that a public battle over getting them under oath would distract from the work of gathering facts about the attack that took place on January 6 and the events that led up to it.
Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi who serves as the committee chairman, has stated in the past that the committee decided against issuing a subpoena for Mr. Pence because of the “significant information” that it had obtained from two of his aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob, both of whom sat for depositions. Mr. Jacob also testified live during one of the panel’s hearings in June, during which he referred to a plan devised by a lawyer named John Eastman to have Mr. Pence single-handedly throw the election to Mr. Trump during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, as “certifiably crazy.” Mr. Jacob’s comments were made in reference to this plan.
In addition to testifying before the committee of the House of Representatives, both Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob have also testified in front of a federal grand jury in Washington, which is currently hearing testimony in connection with a parallel investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice into the events of January 6. On January 4, 2021, the two men were present in the Oval Office for a meeting during which Mr. Trump instructed Mr. Eastman to attempt to convince Mr. Pence that he could postpone or obstruct legislative certification of Mr. Trump’s loss in the Electoral College.
Even though it is not yet clear whether or not Mr. Pence will testify before the committee, in the event that he does, it is likely that he will provide the panel with a more comprehensive picture of the attempt by Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman to coerce him into undermining the conventional democratic process.
Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a supporter of Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election, is still on the list of witnesses to call by the committee, despite the fact that she has rejected attempts to interview her. Virginia Thomas is another potentially high-profile witness. She is a supporter of Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in power after the election in 2020.
