Pence’s selective silence
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s recent memoir is called “So Help Me God,” which is a reference to his oath of office and apparently not to any oath he might take before testifying to the special counsel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Pence’s memoir — the first product of what CNN has reported as a twobook deal worth upwards of $3 million — came out just two months before the author was served with a subpoena from the office of Jack Smith, the veteran prosecutor tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland with examining the events that led up to the insurrection as well as ex-president Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents. Mr. Pence has announced his intention to resist the subpoena on the somewhat novel grounds that, since he was presiding officer of the U.S. Senate during the events in question, he is covered by the “speech and debate” clause of the
Constitution, which protects members of the legislative branch from civil or criminal accountability for almost anything said in the context of their legislative duties.
Readers might well confuse this argument for the one Mr. Pence made when he refused to testify before the House subcommittee investigating Mr. Trump’s attempts to overthrow the 2020 election. In that matter, he cited executive as opposed to legislative privilege, stating that the panel “has no right to my testimony” due to the separation of powers. (His top aides testified to the Jan. 6 committee as well as to a federal grand jury examining the events that led to Jan. 6.)
One imagines Mr. Pence might rebuff the next request to testify by claiming some sort of judicial immunity. Collect ’em all, as they say.
It will be up to a court — possibly the Supreme one — to decide whether Mr. Pence’s latest dodge has legal merit. One imagines that his real goal is less about preserving the separation of powers than maintaining the former vice president’s somewhat tattered standing among Mr. Trump’s fans, who view him as a MAGA Benedict Arnold for refusing to overturn the Electoral College results Jan. 6. Praising Mr. Pence for this is, of course, like thanking someone for not punching you in the face for no reason: much appreciated, but still the bare minimum of civil conduct.
Mr. Pence shared a somewhat sanitized version of the events of the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 in his book. This transparency-for-hire is similar to what John Bolton, Mr. Trump’s erstwhile national security adviser, pulled in 2020 when he rejected the House’s request to testify to what he knew about Mr. Trump’s efforts to shake down the president of Ukraine, but said he’d be happy to do it if subpoenaed by the then-republicanmajority U.S. Senate — something he could be assured would never happen — while prepping for the release of his own memoir detailing these meetings.
What Mr. Pence is engaging in is silence for political benefit and disclosure for personal profit. Despite his attempts to dress up these cynical decisions in constitutional trappings, it is the opposite of patriotism.