Mike Pence Officially Challenges DOJ Subpoena Using ‘Untested’ Legal Argument

Former Vice President Mike Pence has officially challenged the subpoena issued to him by special prosecutor Jack Smith, arguing that he is protected from testifying due to the "Speech or Debate Clause" that protects members of Congress. However, this argument has never been tested for a Vice President, so we are entering completely uncharted waters and there are a lot of different arguments and possibilities that

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Mike Pence has now officially challenged the subpoena sent to him by special prosecutor Jack Smith at the doj, uh, for several weeks. Now, there's been the speculation that he's probably going to challenge it. Uh, it wasn't until the last couple days that he did officially say, thanks, but no thanks. I am protected by the speech or debate clause. Now, his objection to the subpoena actually came on the exact same day that Donald Trump came out and said, oh, I'm declaring executive privilege over Mike Pence. He can't testify. That's what his lawyer said. And, uh, that's, that's not a thing at all. You, you can't declare that only the sitting president can, and that happens to be President Biden, and I'm willing to bet he's not gonna invoke it for former Vice President Mike Pence. So the executive privilege argument is out, but the speech or debate clause, right, that's the big one. That's the one that may or may not save him. And legal experts unfortunately, are completely torn on it. You have some legal experts saying, yeah, it's probably game over speech or debate. He doesn't have to testify while others say, that's preposterous, he didn't have a vote. So how can the speech or debate clause, which allows them to go on fact finding missions, how can that apply to somebody who didn't have a vote?

The reason there is so much disagreement among these legal scholars is that for the vice presidency, the speech or debate clause is untested. We don't know what the courts would determine because it's never been done. So Mike Pence has now entered uncharted waters by claiming he is protected by the speech or debate laws with his overseeing of the January 6th, uh, electoral college certification. Now, I'm inclined to believe that if you don't have a vote, you shouldn't be protected by speech or debate protections because you don't go on these so-called fact finding missions to make an informed decision about your vote. If you don't have a vote, you have no say in whether something is a vote yes or vote no. Like that's, that's not up to you.

So here we are with the former vice President who is not accused of any wrongdoing, still not wanting to testify, and I also firmly believe that this is his way to try to pander to the right, cuz Mike Pence is gonna run for president. Um, and try to say like, Hey, I wasn't a turn code. I didn't just roll over on all my buddies. I, I fought it as best I could and all darn it I lost. Or, Hey, I won. That was, I didn't expect that. Uh, but that's what he's doing here because he knows he's not in trouble. Like, Mike, this is the one good thing you ever did. Why not just go and tell the truth? Isn't that what Jesus would want you to do? Or do you not actually care what Jesus would want you to do? Oh, okay, I got it, I got that.

Um, but again, we're gonna see legal challenges to this. This is gonna end up in court and the courts will then decide what kind of protections the former vice president or actually the current vice president, any vice president actually has. And this could be exceptionally damaging because it could provide blanket immunity for vice presidents. Much the way presidents have that, if they just invoke, oh, no speech or debate, you can't come after me. But I'm also inclined to think that they may not do that because we saw Lindsey Graham try to claim speech or debate protections in Georgia and the court said, no, this, this isn't protected at all.