Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said that Mike Pence is going to have to testify about his conversations with Trump or he will end up back in court because they aren’t covered by privilege.
Video:
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tells @Acosta why he thinks Pence will testify about conversations with Trump, “I think if he didn’t Jim that he would end up back in court, which is where he doesn’t want to be here already kind of put on a show and has a moral victory.” pic.twitter.com/CmI7pDWrIs
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) April 23, 2023
Mariotti said when asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta if he thought Mike Pence was going to ‘spill the tea’ to Jack Smith:
I think so. I think if he didn’t, Jim that he would end up back in court, which is where he doesn’t want to be here already kind of put on a show and has a moral victory. I think now he’s going to testify. I think the question is. How does he testify? What does he say? And one thing that he said publicly, Jim is he tries to characterize what Trump did as him listening to bad legal advice, right, essentially suggesting that you know Trump was being advised. You know, I don’t know, too, you know. Take one legal action and he you know he followed that legal action.
But in fact, I mean the advice he was getting from people like John Eastman was not really I would say advice. That was it all. I wouldn’t characterize it as bad legal advice. In fact, I think Jack Smith is investigating whether that was a crime and Pence’s own advisor said that it had nothing to do with you know the laws it’s been interpreted. So you know, I think that you know he may try to have it both ways. It will be interesting to see whether his private testimony under oath matches his potentially self-serving testimony to the public, right and in a news proceeding where he’s trying to woo the Republican base. ”
Earlier in the same interview, Mariotti discussed how Mike Pence’s privilege is narrow, “But you know, it’s very narrowly construed. It’s about what he was doing in connection with the scripts he was writing. You know how he was discharging those duties )as president of the Senate on 1/6), and wouldn’t really go to an unrelated crime. Let’s say you know, but threats or pressure that Trump was putting on him for, you know, to overturn the election.”
Mike Pence really doesn’t have a choice. He is going to have to tell Jack Smith things that he has avoided telling any other investigation. Pence is going to have to talk, and what he says has the potential get Donald Trump criminally charged for his attempted overthrow of the United States government.