08/02/2023

Trump Indictment References Pence or Vice Presidency More Than 100 Times

The indictment alleges Pence took 'contemporaneous notes' related to the election

The 45-page indictment accusing former president Donald Trump of criminal schemes in his effort to overturn the 2020 election results references Mike Pence or the office of the vice presidency more than 100 times, reflecting Pence's role as a central figure in the charging document.

Pence took "contemporaneous notes" about Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the 45th president’s electoral defeat in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, according to the indictment, which includes some new specific allegations about a defining chapter of Pence's career and a key point of contention in his long-shot 2024 presidential campaign against his former boss. Pence rejected Trump's pressure to try to reverse the election results in his role certifying the outcome, leading to a fracture that has persisted to this day.

The notes are explicitly cited twice in the document. The first reference highlights that Trump, on Dec. 29, 2020, allegedly told Pence that the Justice Department was "finding major infractions," according to the notes. The second details a Jan. 4, 2021, meeting, where Trump allegedly repeated his false claims of widespread election fraud. During that meeting, according to the document, Pence questioned Trump lawyer John Eastman's proposal to send the election results back to the states, asking if it was "defensible."

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.