Donald Trump and former vice president Mike Pence took shots at each other on Wednesday, one day after a federal grand jury indicted the former president following an investigation into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Prosecutors say Trump urged then-Vice President Pence to help him overturn the election during at least four calls in late 2020 and early 2021. Trump allegedly told Pence he was “too honest” when the vice president pushed back against the idea and said he did not have the authority, the indictment says.
“For my part, I want people to know that I had no right to overturn the election and that what the president maintained that day, and frankly has said over and over again over the last two-and-a-half years, is completely false,” Pence said Wednesday at the Indiana State Fair. “And it’s contrary to what our Constitution and the laws of this country provide.”
“You know, I’m a student of American history. And the first time I heard in early December somebody suggest that as vice president I might be able to decide which votes to reject and which to accept, I knew that it was false. … I dismissed it out of hand,” Pence added. “Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear.”
Trump, for his part, attacked Pence and Florida governor Ron DeSantis in posts on Truth Social on Wednesday.
“Like Mike Pence, who I took from a flawed and failing gubernatorial re-elect campaign in the Great State of Indiana to make my V.P., Ron is a very disloyal guy who has taken bad advice!” Trump wrote.
He added in a second post: “I feel badly for Mike Pence, who is attracting no crowds, enthusiasm, or loyalty from people who, as a member of the Trump Administration, should be loving him.”
Trump went on to falsely claim “The V.P. had power that Mike didn’t understand, but after the Election, the RINOS & Dems changed the law, taking that power away!”
Trump is set to appear in a D.C. court on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false,” the indictment reads.
Trump has been charged with four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
The indictment lists six unnamed co-conspirators, including several attorneys, a DOJ official, and a political consultant. It alleges Trump “pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”