NEW YORK — Mike Pence fought the Department of Justice in court to try to avoid testifying against his former boss. But the former vice president plays a central role in a new federal indictment unsealed Tuesday that outlines the first criminal charges against Donald Trump connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The 45-page indictment is informed, in part, by contemporaneous notes that Pence kept of their conversations in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as Trump tried to pressure Pence to go along with his desperate — and prosecutors say illegal — scheme to keep the two men in power.
Among the discussions: An episode in which Trump is alleged to have told Pence that he was “too honest” for rejecting Trump’s false claims that Pence had the power to overturn the vote. “Bottom line – won every state by 100,000s of votes,” Trump said in another conversation, according to the indictment.
Pence, who is among a crowded field of Republicans now challenging Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination, has spent much of his nascent campaign defending his decision to defy Trump. He launched his bid with a firm denunciation of his two-time running mate, saying Trump had “demanded I choose between him and our Constitution. Now voters will be faced with the same choice.”
Still, Pence said last month that he did not believe Trump had broken the law in connection with Jan. 6 and has repeatedly questioned the Department of Justice’s motivations for investigating him.
On Tuesday night, he hit anew on his belief that Trump was unfit to serve again.
“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” he said in a statement. “Our country is more important than one man. Our Constitution is more important than any one man’s career.”