PatriotNews , 2023-04-27 15:55:42
Federal Appeals Court Denies Trump’s Request to Block Pence Testimony
A federal appeals court has dealt a setback to former president Donald Trump in his attempt to keep the former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying in a criminal investigation into the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit denied Trump’s emergency motion on Wednesday, paving the way for the special counsel examining the matter to obtain potentially incriminating evidence from Pence.
Pence to be Interviewed by Special Counsel Prosecutors
Top Trump adviser Mike Pence is to be interviewed by special counsel prosecutors as a potentially key witness in the obstruction of justice case. Trump’s lawyers invoked executive privilege to limit the scope of Pence’s testimony, as well as by Pence’s lawyer, who argued his role as president of the Senate on January 6 meant he was protected from legal scrutiny by the executive branch.
Both requests to limit the scope of Pence’s testimony were largely denied by the new chief US judge for the court, James Boasberg. As a result, the former vice-president’s team declined to challenge the ruling. However, Trump’s legal team argued and filed an emergency motion to the US appeals court for the DC circuit — which was denied late on Wednesday by judges Gregory Katsas, Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins.
Trump and Others Tried to Pressure Pence
In the wake of election day, Trump had tried to pressure Pence into helping him reverse his defeat by using his largely ceremonial role as the presiding officer of the Senate on January 6 to reject legitimate slates of electors for Joe Biden and prevent his certification. The effort relied in large part on Pence accepting fake slates of electors for Trump — a scheme that is also the subject of the criminal investigation.
The pressure campaign stemmed from Trump alongside figures inside and outside the government, including Trump’s lawyer John Eastman, other Trump campaign-affiliated lawyers like Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani and dozens of Republican members of Congress. Pence was among the few people who had one-on-one discussions with Trump on the day of and the day before the Capitol attack.
Although Pence is precluded from testifying about any preparations for his role as presiding officer of the Senate, it remains unclear how illuminating his testimony might be for prosecutors. It is possible that Pence’s testimony could provide important information on Trump and the others’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and their state of mind in the weeks leading up to Biden’s inauguration.
