WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The congressional committee investigating last year’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol turned its attention on Thursday to then-President Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
The House of Representatives select committee called former aides to Pence to testify on efforts by Trump and some of his associates to convince the vice president to prevent formal congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election.
Thousands of Trump supporters – many chanting “Hang Mike Pence” – marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Pence oversaw a session in which lawmakers met for what is normally a routine procedure to certify election results. Some erected a makeshift gallows they said was intended for Pence.
The certification had become a focus for Trump, who saw it as a last-ditch chance to retain the presidency despite his loss at the polls. His supporters flocked to Washington to rally with the Republican president, who had made repeated false claims that the election was stolen through widespread voting fraud. They stormed the Capitol, attacked police and sent Pence and lawmakers fleeing for their safety.
Trump’s accountability for the Jan. 6 riot is “incidental to his responsibility and accountability for his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election from the American people,” retired U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig will tell the committee, according to written testimony obtained by CNN.
“It is breathtaking that these arguments even were conceived, let alone entertained by the president of the United States at that perilous moment in history,” Luttig, who was an informal adviser to Pence, said in his statement.
Pence did not follow Trump’s instructions to scrap the certification of votes. Had he obeyed, according to Luttig’s testimony, the country would have been plunged into a “revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis.”
Thursday’s hearing also features testimony from Greg Jacob, who served as counsel to Pence. Videotaped testimony of former Pence chief of staff Marc Short is expected to be shown as well.
The hearing is the third of at least six planned public hearings this month at which the nine-member, Democratic-led committee will discuss preliminary results of its nearly yearlong investigation of the events leading up to the Jan. 6 attack.
Committee aides said the hearing will examine the emergence of a plan advocated by Trump associates including attorney John Eastman that Pence could unilaterally reject certified electors from certain states where results had been challenged. Pence refused to accept that theory.
Separately, Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chairperson, told reporters on Thursday that the committee should ask Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to testify.
Thomas’ involvement in conservative politics and reported ties to people involved with Trump’s challenge to the election outcome have raised questions about whether her husband should recuse himself from Supreme Court decisions related to such matters.
Pence said in February that Trump, under whom he served as vice president for four years, was wrong to believe that Pence had the power to reverse the election’s outcome.
“I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence told an audience in Florida. The committee played a video of him saying so during its first public hearing on Thursday night.
The committee intends to lay out a timeline of Pence’s day on Jan. 6, which could detail contacts with Trump and Secret Service agents who spirited the vice president to a secure location as the crowd threatened him.
The attack on the Capitol delayed certification of the election for hours, injured more than 140 police officers and led to several deaths. More than 840 people have been arrested and charged so far.
The onslaught marked the only time in U.S. history that power was not passed peacefully from one president to another.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Alistair Bell)
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