So far, vice president has sidestepped Trump’s drama
But his credibility is coming under fire as new questions arise
For someone WASHINGTON who’s one heartbeat away from the presidency, Mike Pence has somehow managed to stay an arm’s length from the multiplying scandals now engulfing the Trump White House.
In fact, at the height of the controversies enveloping his boss, the vice president is even building his own political war chest, creating a political action committee to support congressional candidates, which will enhance his already strong popularity among Republicans.
Though Pence is not at the center of the maelstrom, he hasn’t escaped unscathed. His credibility has been questioned in the past few days, especially after President Trump undercut the explanations Pence and other administration officials gave for why James Comey was fired as FBI director.
And new questions are swirling about what Michael Flynn told the Trump transition team — headed by Pence — about his work on behalf of the Turkish government. A new report from
The New York Times indicates the former national security adviser told the team in January that he was under FBI investigation for secretly lobbying for Turkey during the campaign. The White House denies that, and Pence reiterated Thursday that he only learned of Flynn’s lobbying in March.
“Pence choices: Out of the loop dupe is better than in the loop conspirator,” tweeted John Weaver, a Republican strategist who worked for Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 presidential bid. “Neither will help him longterm.”
Flynn was fired Feb. 13, after news went public that he misled administration officials — including Pence — about his pre-inauguration contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. But the Flynn story won’t go away.
While walking through Capitol Hill hallways Thursday, Pence ignored shouted questions from reporters about Flynn. “Why did the White House keep you in the dark?” he was asked.
The New York Times said Flynn first told the transition team’s chief lawyer, Donald McGahn, of the investigation Jan. 4. McGahn is now the White House counsel and is likely to be interviewed as part of the FBI’s investigation of possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign associates — including Flynn.
If McGahn didn’t tell Pence, the vice president “looks pretty bad for not knowing,” said Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. On the other hand, he said, “obviously, if it turns out that Pence is not telling the truth about when he knew, that’s pretty devastating for him, especially if we’re looking down the road at him becoming president.”
Still, Ornstein said, it’s surprising Pence’s reputation hasn’t been hurt more already because the Trump administration is “fundamentally just staining everybody who is a part of it.”
Consider that Pence also went on national TV to assure the nation that sanctions placed on Russia by the Obama administration hadn’t been discussed during a December phone call between Flynn and Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Eavesdropping by U.S. intelligence officials undercut Flynn’s denial. But Flynn was fired after misleading administration officials, including Pence.
And the revelation that Trump pressed Comey, before firing him, to shut down the agency’s inquiry into Flynn rocked Washington. But he had Pence leave the Oval Office before making that request, according to accounts of memos kept by Comey made public this week.
“What is it about @mike_pence that no one ever tells him anything,” tweeted David Axelrod, the former top strategist to Barack Obama.
But if that’s true, it could prove to be a good thing.
“Whatever Washington, D.C., may be focused on at any given time,” Pence said at a business summit Thursday, “rest assured, President Donald Trump will never stop fighting for the issues that matter most.”