Panel outlines Trump's pressure on Pence to decertify election

The House committee investigating the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol on Thursday focused on Vice-President Mike Pence refusing to give in to pressure from President Donald Trump to decertify the 2020 presidential election results.

The pressure Trump put on Pence, including at a Jan 6 rally in front of the White House, led directly to the insurrection at the Capitol, the bipartisan panel said at its third public hearing.

The committee said that Trump's pressure on Pence was the central component of an illegal conspiracy to keep Trump in power, and it provided evidence that many of Trump's top advisers believed Pence couldn't legally reject electoral votes for Joe Biden.

"Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no other vice-president has ever done: The former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again," said committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi.

"Mike Pence said no," Thompson said. "He resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong."

Witnesses in live and taped testimony to the committee on Thursday characterized efforts to reject the slate of electors and overturn the election for Joe Biden as "nuts", "crazy" and even likely to incite riot.

Trump wanted Pence, who as president of the Senate was presiding over a joint session of Congress to count electoral votes on Jan 6, to reject or replace slates of electors.

The bipartisan panel showed taped footage of an interview with Pence's chief of staff Marc Short, who told the committee that Pence told Trump he wouldn't reject electors "many, many times" yet the president continued to press Pence.

Trump met with Pence in a one-on-one meeting at the White House the night before the vote count, and the next morning Trump berated Pence in a telephone call, according to recorded testimony from a former chief of staff to Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter.

She, several family members and top aides were present in the Oval Office with Trump during the call. In her own testimony, Ivanka Trump said the discussion became "pretty heated" and that her father used a "different tone" than he had with Pence in the past.

On the morning of Jan 6, as Pence issued a public statement making clear that he would certify the legitimate results of the election, Trump told thousands of his supporters in front of the White House that he hoped Pence would reconsider. The committee showed video from that rally in which Trump said that if Pence doesn't come through, "I won't like him as much."

The committee said it had evidence that Trump knew that rioters had stormed the Capitol on Jan 6 as Pence was inside overseeing the vote count, but Trump continued to tweet criticism against him for not rejecting the electoral votes.

The committee played a video showing the gallows that were built outside the Capitol and rioters chanting, "Bring out Pence!'' and Hang Mike Pence!''

"Trump turned a mob on him," Thompson said.

In new evidence, the committee said Pence came within 40 feet of the mob as he was escorted from the Senate to a secure location, where he remained for more than four hours before the Capitol was secured, and lawmakers could return to the House chamber later that night for the counting of electoral votes.

"Approximately 40 feet. That's all there was," said California Democrat Representative Pete Aguilar who led most of the hearing's proceedings. "Forty feet between the vice-president and the mob."

When Pence returned to the House chamber later that night to complete the counting of electoral votes, he told lawmakers: "Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. But thanks to the swift efforts of US Capitol Police, federal, state and local law enforcement, the violence was quelled. The Capitol is secured, and the people's work continues."