As my colleague Nick Arama pointed out, former Vice President Mike Pence’s tweet commentary on the latest Trump indictment pretty much finished his campaign and sealed his fate. Pence has made himself unlikeable, and he will never be president–at least not of these United States of America.
Way to sink your campaign still further. Somehow, even the random person on the street knows that we are at a precarious time with the government being weaponized against us–and that we need to stand together against it if we are to uphold the rule of law and the protections of the Constitution. But Pence doesn’t seem to get it, even as he talks about the Constitution. That’s a huge problem.
Pence may not even make the cut for the second GOP debate. But he’s also not making it with many people with this kind of response. He’s just stuck another fork in his campaign.
Pence went from sticking it with a fork to committing hara-kiri. He was rebuked and ratioed into next week over his initial commentary, but he refused to stop talking.
It is clear Pence has long practiced this posture of draping himself in the Constitution. When you listen to him talk about how it wasn’t his role to overturn the election, it sounds way too practiced and rehearsed, and nobody believes him.
Despite this, Pence decided he needed to make more public statements and took to the legacy and conservative media to further explain.
Just call him Mr. Double Down.
WATCH:
Now, with regard to the substance of the indictment I’ve been very clear. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I had hoped that this issue and the judgment of the president’s actions that they would be left to the American people. But now it’s been brought in a criminal indictment, and I can’t assess whether or not the government has the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what they assert in the indictment. And the president is entitled to a presumption of innocence.
But, for my part I want people to know that I had no right to overturn the election. Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers, that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear. And while I had made my case to him, what I understood my oath to the Constitution to require, the president ultimately, ultimately continued to demand that I choose him over the Constitution.
Oh… now it’s the “crackpot lawyers'” fault and Trump’s itching ears. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment reveals that Pence took secret notes of his conversations with President Donald Trump right before Trump’s January 6 rally and the subsequent kerfuffle. These never-before-seen notes are now part of the evidence against Trump in the conspiracy, fraud, and obstruction charges brought in this latest indictment.
Pence also appeared on Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum and used the same “crackpot” language. A term that was probably poll-tested by Pence’s campaign consultants.
I was clear on that throughout. I was clear with President Trump throughout, all the way up to the morning of January 6th. But let’s be clear on this point, it wasn’t only that they asked for a pause. The president specifically asked me, and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me to literally reject votes which would have resulted in the issue being turned over to the House of Representatives, and literally chaos would have ensued. So, so Martha, people can read the indictment, and frankly, I’ve said before, I had hoped that it not come to this point. I don’t know if the government can meet the standard, the burden of proof, beyond reasonable doubt for criminal charges. But the American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisors didn’t just ask me to pause, they asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election. And to keep faith with the oath I had made to the American people and to Almighty God, I rejected that out of hand and I did my duty that day.
Cloaked in the Constitution with a bit of Jesus for a sash. Pence has shown and continues to show where his true allegiance lies, and it isn’t to the Constitution or to the Almighty. It is to Mike Pence and whatever promises the Republican elite made to him in order for him to sell out the president.
For his part, Trump took to TruthSocial and actually expressed sympathy for the devil.
Fascinating. The criminal turns the other cheek, while the so-called righteous man colludes to take him down and lies about his role. However this shakes out for Trump, whatever credibility Mike Pence may have had has now been shredded. He’s a dead candidate walking.