Mike Pence told Trump ‘many times’ that plan to overturn election was illegal, ex-VP’s aide says

Pence’s refusal to submit to Trump on Jan 6 credited with avoiding constitutional crisis

Former Vice President Mike Pence warned Donald Trump that his plans to overturn the 2020 election were illegal ahead of January 6, the committee investigating Mr Trump’s role in the attack revealed on Thursday.

The latest revelation came in the form of testimony from Marc Short, the vice president’s ex-chief of staff who has remained one of his closest aides since Mr Pence left the White House in 2021.

According to Mr Short, the vice president warned Mr Trump “many times” that the plan was unconstitutional, yet Mr Trump pressed forward in his efforts to pressure his VP into interfering in the electoral count anyway.

Explaining further, Mr Short said that Mr Pence was “very consistent” in his view that the vice president did not have the power to unilaterally decide to throw out results submitted by individual states.

Thursday’s hearing centred around the effort to persuade the vice president to interfere in a January 6 session of the Senate, through his power as President of the Senate, called every four years to oversee the counting of the Electoral College results. Before now, the date and relevant Senate meetings have been largely ceremonial, with the drama of the presidential election being decided months earlier.

In 2021, however, that date became forever linked to a now-infamous storming of the US Capitol in which dozens of police officers were wounded, some badly. One officer who was maced during the riot suffered two strokes and died a day later; several others committed suicide in the weeks following the attack.

Mr Trump’s legal team engaged in a months-long effort to persuade both Mr Pence and members of the Senate to attempt to interfere in the certification of Joe Biden’s victory on Jan 6 and the president himself, aided by allied right-wing groups, encouraged thousands of his supporters to descend on DC to pressure Congress into overturning the election despite every available credible expert dismissing his claims of election fraud out of hand.

Mr Pence has remained active in Republican circles following his very public break from the former president and most recently threw his support behind incumbent Georgia Gov Brian Kemp in that state’s GOP gubernatorial primary against an unsuccessful Trump-backed challenger.