WASHINGTON – He began the day with prayer.
Vice President Mike Pence, preparing to endure the final stages of President Donald J.’s relentless campaign. Trump, in order to force him to illegally try to annul the results of the 2020 elections, began on January 6, 2021, surrounded by assistants at his official residence at the Naval Observatory, asking God for guidance.
The group was expecting a difficult day. But what followed over the next 12 hours was more painful than they had imagined.
An angry mob of baseball bats and pepper spray, chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” came in 40 feet from the vice president. The details of Mr. Pence’s secret services were to take him to safety and keep him in the Capitol for nearly five hours. Mr Trump called Mr Pence “weak” and worse in a rude and insulting call this morning from the Oval Office, according to Mr Trump’s daughter and former White House staffers.
A confidential witness traveling to Washington with the Proud Boys, the most famous of the far-right groups that helped lead the Capitol attack, later told investigators that the group was going to kill Mr Pence – and President Nancy Pelosi. – If you get the chance.
These were among the remarkable new details that emerged during the third public hearing held Thursday by the House of Representatives selection committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
Mr. Pence’s day rose, as it often did. The vice president, whose evangelical faith was sold a point for adding him to the 2016 presidential ticket but often a source of skepticism about Mr. Trump, was joined by three people in prayer: his chief adviser, Greg Jacob; his chief of staff Mark Short; and its director of legislative affairs, Chris Hodgson.
Mr Pence and his team have been subjected to a series of requests from Mr Trump for the Vice President to refuse to certify the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College in a joint session of Congress – an unconstitutional action never taken before. two and a half centuries since the founding of the nation.
“We just asked for guidance and wisdom, knowing that the day would be a challenge,” Mr Short said in a video of the testimony released by the committee.
While Mr. Pence was at the Naval Observatory, Mr. Trump was in the Oval Office with assistants and family members coming and going, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoil, and Ivanka Trump. He had already posted two posts on Twitter, putting additional pressure on Mr. Pence, the first at 1 a.m., the second at 8 a.m., and concluded, “Do it, Mike, this is a time of great courage!”
At 11:20 a.m., Mr. Trump called Mr. Pence, who backed away from his aides to accept the call.
The Oval Office group could hear Mr. Trump’s side in the conversation, but paid little attention to what seemed like a routine conversation. But as Mr. Trump became increasingly hot, Mr. Pence insisted on refusing to back down, the call became difficult to ignore.
The topics of the hearings of the committee of the House of Representatives on January 6
“I remember hearing the word ‘weak’,” said Nick Luna, an aide to Mr Trump, in a video recording. “Wimp is the word I remember.”
Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and former White House chief of staff, said in her videos that “it was a different tone than I heard him talk to the vice president before.”
Ms. Trump’s chief of staff, Julie Radford, appeared in recorded testimony to say that Ms. Trump told her shortly after the conversation that Mr. Trump had had an “upsetting” conversation with Mr. Pence. The president, Ms Radford said, used the word ‘P’. (The New York Times reported earlier that Mr. Trump told Mr. Pence, “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy,” according to two people informed of the conversation. )
At the Naval Observatory, Mr Pence returned to the room after taking the call, looking “steel”, “determined” and “gloomy”, Mr Jacob told the committee.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, reconsidered a speech he gave later that day to crowds of Ellipse supporters. Mr Pence was not mentioned in the early draft of the speech, the committee said. But after the conversation, the president included a language that the videos showed, angered the mafia.
“I hope Mike does the right thing,” Mr Trump said in a speech. “I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win.
“All Vice President Pence has to do is send him back to the states for re-certification and we will become president, and you are the happiest people,” Mr Trump continued, referring to one of his demands, Mr Pence. to send back the results of the state election, a tactic of delay that he hoped would eventually keep him in office. If Mr. Pence doesn’t comply, Mr. Trump told the crowd, “this is going to be a sad day for our country.”
He added: “So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesn’t listen to RINO and the stupid people he listens to, “using the term” Republicans by name alone. “
Mr. Trump directed his supporters to march to the Capitol and be heard.
By the time Mr. Pence arrived in the Capitol with his wife, Karen Pence, and their daughter, Charlotte, an angry crowd was gathering outside.
Inside, when the joint session began, Mr. Pence’s aides released a note to the public outlining the vice president’s view that he did not have the authority over the certification that Mr. Trump and his attorney, John Eastman, insisted.
Shortly after 2:10 p.m., the case was interrupted by a loud noise. The crowd stormed the building. At 2:24 p.m. – when Democrats on the committee said Mr Trump was aware that the Capitol had been breached – the president tweeted that “Mike Pence did not have the courage to do so.”
At that moment, the Secret Service had moved Mr. Pence from the Senate Chamber to his office on the other side of the Chamber. His advisers said the noise from the rebels had been heard, leading them to believe they had entered the building. But there was still no all-encompassing sense of anxiety.
Once in his office, Mr. Pence was sitting with his family, including his brother, Representative Greg Pence, and chief aides, while Mr. Short went downstairs to get some food. Mrs. Pence pulled back the curtains so the rebels wouldn’t look.
Mr. Short returned to the office. Until then, Tim Gibbels, the chief agent of Mr. Pence’s Secret Service, had made several attempts to persuade Mr. Pence and his family to relocate. But soon he was no longer making an offer. Mr. Pence, he said, must get to safety.
The entourage began to make their way down the stairs to an underground loading dock, the point where they reached 40 feet of the rebels. Mr. Pence and his aides then did not know how close they were to the crowd, some of whom threatened to kill him.
“I could hear the noise of the rebels in the building,” Mr Jacob said during the hearing on Thursday. “I don’t think I knew they were that close.”
From the cargo dock, Mr. Pence made calls to congressional leaders who had been evacuated from the Capitol complex and ordered the Pentagon to send the National Guard. Secret services ordered him to get in a car and evacuate, but he refused to leave the building.
“The vice president did not want to risk the world seeing the vice president of the United States flee the United States Capitol,” Jacob said on Thursday, noting that Mr Pence did not want to give the rebels any satisfaction in disrupting production. than they have already done. “He was determined to finish the work we set out to do that day.”
One person he never spoke to again that day was Mr. Trump, who did not call to check on Mr. Pence’s safety. Neither did White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Shortly after 8 p.m., the Senate hall reopened after the rebels were driven out of the complex.
“Today has been a bleak day in the history of the United States Capitol,” Mr Pence said when the process resumed. He was greeted with applause when he said, “Let’s go back to work.”
Back at the White House, prompted by some of his advisers, Mr Trump told his aides that he wanted to ban Mr Short from entering the West Wing since then.
At 3:42 in the morning, it was over. Mr Biden’s victory was confirmed.
At 3:50 a.m., as Mr. Pence and Mr. Short parted ways, Mr. Short sent his boss a passage from the Bible.
“I fought in the good battle, finished the race, kept the faith,” the statement said.
Add Comment