Donald Trump’s conversations with Mike Pence are an extremely important part of the former president’s election-fraud case, a legal analyst has said.
Harry Litman, an attorney and constitutional lecturer at the University of California Los Angeles, was reacting to prosecutors’ release of evidence in Trump‘s election-fraud case.
Trump was indicted in Washington, D.C., on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty and has said the case is part of a political witch hunt.
Speaking on his YouTube channel on Monday, Litman said that the evidence, released on October 2, shows that Trump belittled Pence after the 2020 presidential election. At the time, the Republican was trying to force his running mate to accept his claims that the election was rigged for Joe Biden.
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump’s attorney on Tuesday.
“He savages him and tells him what a loser he is and that the country will be furious at him and what a mistake he would have made because Pence will not violate his constitutional duties,” Litman said. “Those conversations are really, really probative of a big part of the case, the obstruction part in particular,” he added.
Donald Trump (R) and then-Indiana Governor Mike Pence (L) take to the stage during a campaign rally at Grant Park Event Center in Westfield, Indiana, on July 12, 2016. The former president’s communication with his running mate form a major part of the election-fraud case, a legal analyst has said.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
“The Pence stuff is very interesting, it is super important super probative evidence,” Litman said.
Chief prosecutor Jack Smith says that Trump used a private attorney to pressure Pence into accepting his claims that the 2020 election was rigged in Joe Biden’s favor.
As all vice presidents automatically become president of the Senate, Trump wanted Pence to use his Senate role to refuse to certify the 2020 election result.
Smith says that, by using a private attorney to communicate with Pence, Trump cannot not claim presidential immunity.
It is vital for Smith to present Trump’s actions as private after the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that the Republican has broad immunity from prosecution for presidential acts.
“It is hard to imagine stronger evidence that conduct is private than when the President excludes his White House Counsel and only wishes to have his private counsel present,” Smith wrote in his evidence dossier, which was released on October 2.
Smith wants to fully lay out the case against Trump so that all immunity challenges can be dealt with early in the case. That prevents the former president’s lawyers from raising an objection mid-trial.
The Supreme Court had already outlined in its ruling that the case against Trump should be fully articulated early to allow the federal courts to assess its constitutionality.
Litman said that Smith has removed any reference to Trump’s communication with the Department of Justice to comply with the Supreme Court ruling but needs to keep Pence in the case.
“You’ll notice for the most part that Jack Smith responded to the Supreme Court judgment by excising from the indictment things that the court said were likely to be immune,” Litman added.
“His interaction with his in-house counsel are mostly gone,” but communications with Pence have remained in the case, Litman said.
