Pence says he has ‘never’ discussed removing Trump from presidency

WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence said he was never part of discussions to remove President Donald Trump from office and would take a lie-detector test “in a heartbeat” to prove that he was not the author of last week’s anonymous New York Times op-ed, who claimed to be part of a resistance movement within the Trump administration.

In interviews with “Fox News Sunday” and CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday, Pence also said that he is “100 percent certain” that no one from his staff authored the op-ed and that he would be “more than willing” to sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his ongoing Russia probe.

Trump has stepped up his calls for the Justice Department to investigate the author of the piece, which described a “twotrack presidency” in which some senior aides are working to thwart Trump’s “misguided impulses” and have even discussed removing the president from office via the 25th Amendment.

They also come as former President Barack Obama has stepped forward to criticize Republican politics, comparing Trump in a speech Friday to demagogues around the world who exploit “a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment.”

Asked by “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan whether he had participated in any discussions about removing Trump from office, Pence replied, “No. Never. And why would we be, Margaret?”

He argued that the op-ed was “just an obvious attempt to distract attention from this booming economy and President Trump’s record of success.”