CNN broke bombshell reporting this afternoon on a brutal ruling handed down by a federal judge, ordering that former Trump-era Vice President Mike Pence has no choice but to testify before a federal grand jury regarding the conversations he had with now scandal-ridden ex-President Donald J. Trump about the heinous events that took place on January 6th, 2021, when a mob of the then-president’s supporters stormed the nation’s Capitol building, in Donald Trump’s name, in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 Electoral College election victory.
CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju was the first to break the damning news on Twitter, confirming that a US federal judge has formally ruled that former Vice President Pence must testify against his old boss, despite his best efforts to get out of the subpoena issued against him by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith:
Mike Pence must testify about conversations he had with Donald Trump leading up to January 6, judge ruleshttps://t.co/G1BfvpUUyl
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 28, 2023
The ruling itself remains under seal. However, multiple sources have come forward and spoken with CNN regarding the details of the judge’s brutal order.
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CNN’s Katelyn Polantz reported in a segment this afternoon that the ruling was delivered by the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Jeb Boasberg, the contents of which related to “the conversations before January 6th when Donald Trump and Mike Pence were on the phone, one on one, and Donald Trump apparently was berating him, calling him names, that sort of thing.”
Polantz did note that the former VP did get “a little bit of a win himself,” given that Judge Boasberg’s ruling offered a layer of protection over actions and conversations Pence had surrounding January 6th that were related to his official capacity presiding over US Congress when working through the certification of the Electoral College vote on the day of the fateful insurrection itself. However, Pence is not exempt from answering the “crucial questions” posed to him regarding the events in the days leading up to that deadly attack and his personal conversations with the then-sitting US president.
Polantz told fellow CNN anchor Alex Marquardt that the bombshell new ruling was “another victory for Special Counsel Jack Smith,” pointing to the recent series of legal wins in Smith’s favor as the special counsel seeks to force testimonies and subpoenas from some of Trump’s closest aides, despite their desperate, panicked push back.
Pence has notably broken from his old boss in recent months, even going so far as to publicly admit that Donald Trump put his life and the lives of his family members in direct danger through his actions on January 6th, and continually pushes back in a very public manner against the mere notion of a Trump 2024 victory, with some reports even indicating that he’s very seriously floating the idea of his own candidacy against his former boss.
However, the ex-VP has continually stopped just short of turning his back on the 45th president in a legal manner, refusing to cooperate in any capacity with the various investigations against Donald Trump.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
