Mike Pence Accused Of Spitting 'Constitutional Nonsense' To Avoid Subpoena

Mike Pence is trying to use a Constitutional tool to avoid complying with a subpoena from the DOJ, and legal scholars have dismantled his argument and called it "Constitutional nonsense." Pence is trying to invoke the "Speech or Debate Clause", but legal scholars agree that it wouldn't apply to anything related to Pence and the events of January 6th (or the events surrounding the certification of the electoral college votes.) Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, is still refusing to comply with a subpoena from the United States Department of Justice regarding the events of January 6th. And he's using a legal argument that is, interestingly enough, the exact opposite of the legal argument that he used to not testify in front of the house January 6th select committee. Now, back then, for the January 6th committee, Mike Pence was able to successfully argue that I don't have to go and talk to you because I'm a member of the executive branch and you cannot compel my testimony. And it worked. However, with the doj, he's actually arguing the opposite. He says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. At the time I was presiding over Congress and therefore I was technically not a member of the executive branch and therefore I am protected by the speech or debate clause because I, I was technically a member of Congress at the time.

So basic same principle of we need you to testify two completely contradictory legal arguments to avoid testifying to both bodies and legal experts, specifically Lawrence Tribe and Dennis Africa have described his latest attempt to avoid testifying as constitutional nonsense. And they have very good reason to do that. Other, you know, other than the fact that they are legal scholars, it's the fact that there was no speech or debate happening. Because you see, that's the clause of course, that Pence is trying to argue like, Hey, the speech or debate clause protects us members of Congress, which I totally was on that day, from having to testify in investigations because we're allowed to do things, you know, investigate, ask questions as part of the speech or debate clause. But the legal experts say, even though that is of course the exact opposite of what he had previously argued, it doesn't even apply to this because Pence had no voting power.

You're not protected by a clause that protects members of Congress who, who get to vote if you don't have a vote. You are literally only there to call it into session to command order to call for the vote. And then your job is pretty much over. Like you don't get a vote. Nobody asked Mike Pence, what do you think about the results of this election, the electoral college? And by the way, we already know what you thought. You thought you couldn't do anything about it, and you knew you weren't going to do anything about it because you legally couldn't do anything about

It. So not only is your legal argument going to fall flat in court, and we already know that because of what happened down in Georgia when Lindsey Graham tried to invoke the same speech or debate clause trying to get out of a testifying in front of that special grand jury in Georgia. And the court said, no, you're not protected. Go and testify. So you stand no chance of winning on that argument. But at the same time, I have to bring this up again, why won't you testify? You are not in trouble. Your friends are not in trouble, okay? Trump is not your friend. He's the guy. They're going after a a and he was okay with the people wanting to kill you that day. Mike. Why not go and talk to them? Why did they even need to subpoena you? They'd been working with your legal team for months trying to work out how and when you would come and testify, you refused, then they subpoenaed you.

Now you're refusing that you are not in trouble. You're not in trouble. You're gonna get in trouble if you keep defying the subpoena and offering up these idiotic legal arguments. And eventually you will lose and you'll still have to go and testify. But as I've said, maybe that's what he wants. Maybe he wants the conservative base to think that he, he tried his best to get out of it, but they forced him to, so of course he had to turn over the information, you know, so he's not the bad guy cuz he still wants their votes cuz he still wants to run for president. That's my best guess as to why he's fighting this. If you are not in trouble, you know, you did nothing wrong. I, I personally think Mike Pence didn't do anything wrong. But you're still unwilling to testify.