Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday he is “closing the door” on testifying before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol because the panel “has no right to my testimony.”
Pence’s comments drew a swift response from the committee, which asserted that the former vice president’s statements are inaccurate and “disappointing.”
In an interview with CBS News, Pence said he would not testify because “we have a separation of powers under the Constitution of the United States, and I believe it sets a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a vice president of the United States to speak about deliberations that took place at the White House.”
Pence also attacked the Jan. 6 committee as partisan.
“I served for 12 years in the Congress,” he said. “It’s inconceivable to me that one party would appoint every member of a committee in Congress. That’s antithetical to the whole idea of the committee system.
“The partisan nature of the Jan. 6 committee has been a disappointment to me,” Pence added. “It seemed to me in the beginning, there was an opportunity to examine every aspect of what happened on Jan. 6, and and to do so more in the spirit of the 9/11 commission — nonpartisan non-political — and that was an opportunity lost.”
The former vice president, who has been giving a series of interviews while he promotes his new book “So Help Me God,” doubled down on his comments during a CNN town hall Wednesday night.
Describing Jan. 6 as the “most difficult day of my public life,” Pence said that participating in the House’s probe would “erode the dynamic” between a president and vice president.
Senate Republicans last year blocked a bill to create a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate Jan. 6, arguing the body would have duplicated other investigations and should also have examined violence during 2020’s racial justice protests across the country.
The House responded by forming its own investigative committee that was to include eight Democrats and five Republicans. But after Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s picks — Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana, because they voted against certifying the election — McCarthy pulled all Republican participation in the panel. (Jordan and McCarthy were among five House Republicans who later received subpoenas from the committee because they are believed to have information about the Jan. 6 attack or the preceding events.)
Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — Republicans who have been critical of Trump and voted to impeach him last year — then went against McCarthy’s wishes and joined the committee.
In a statement, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Cheney, the Jan. 6 committee’s chair and vice chair, respectively, said it was “disappointing” that Pence “is misrepresenting the nature of our investigation while giving interviews to promote his new book,” adding the panel has “proceeded respectfully and responsibly in our engagement with Vice President Pence.”
“Our investigation has publicly presented the testimony of more than 50 Republican witnesses, including senior members of the Trump White House, the Trump Campaign, and the Trump Justice Department,” they said. “This testimony, subject to criminal penalties for lying to Congress, was not ‘partisan.’ It was truthful.”
Among the witnesses who testified were two of Pence’s top aides: Chief of Staff Marc Short and counsel Greg Jacob.
“The Select Committee has consistently praised the former Vice President’s refusal to bow to former President Trump’s pressure to illegally refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th. But his recent statements about the Select Committee are not accurate,” Thompson and Cheney’s statement added.
The committee dedicated one of its public hearings this summer to efforts by Trump and his allies to pressure Pence into rejecting the results of the 2020 presidential election, issued a statement in response to Pence’s remarks.
“Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice president has ever done: The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again,” Thompson said during the June 16 hearing.
“Mike Pence said no,” Thompson continued. “He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong.”
