Prosecutors have submitted lengthy excerpts from Mike Pence‘s memoir in their election fraud case against Donald Trump.
In the book, Pence described former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani as reaching a “new low” by pushing an election conspiracy theory to Trump in 2020.
In his 2022 memoir So Help Me God, former vice president Pence recalled Giuliani and fellow lawyer Sidney Powell claiming in a meeting in November 2020 that the Democrats had stolen the election.
The submission of the lengthy excerpts by chief prosecutor Jack Smith suggests that Trump’s exchanges with Pence are still central to the former president’s election fraud case, despite a July 1 Supreme Court ruling that stated that Trump could not be prosecuted for official presidential acts.
Newsweek sought comment from lawyers for Trump and Giuliani via email on Monday.
In the book, Pence recalled a meeting following the 2020 election in the White House.
Donald Trump meets with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the clubhouse of the Trump National Golf Club November 20, 2016, in Bedminster, New Jersey. Giuliani’s claims that there was a Democratic Party conspiracy to steal the 2020 election form part of the election fraud case against Donald Trump, newly released court records show.
Don Emmert/Getty Images
“What began as a briefing that Thursday afternoon quickly turned into a contentious back-and-forth between the campaign lawyers and a growing group of outside attorneys led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell,” he wrote.
“After the campaign lawyers gave a sober and somewhat pessimistic report on the state of election challenges, the outside cast of characters went on the attack … Giuliani told the president over the speakerphone, ‘Your lawyers are not telling you the truth, Mr. President.'”
Pence added: “Even in an office well acquainted with rough-and-tumble debates, it was a new low,” adding that the meeting went “downhill from there.”
A normally affable campaign lawyer “lashed out” at Giuliani and completely denied his allegations, Pence recalled.
Trump sided with Giuliani and Powell and appointed them as head of legal strategy.
Pence wrote that he saw that as a decision that led up to the January 6, 2021 riot in the Capitol, when rioters tried to prevent Congress from ratifying Joe Biden‘s win in the presidential election.
“In the end, that day the president made the fateful decision to put Giuliani and Sidney Powell in charge of the legal strategy … The seeds were being sown for a tragic day in January,” Pence wrote.
On Friday, Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed nearly 2,000 pages of heavily redacted evidence in the former president’s election fraud case despite pleading from Trump’s lawyers that it could damage his presidential campaign.
The excerpts from Pence’s memoir were included in the release.
Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights in connection with an alleged pressure campaign on state officials to reverse the 2020 election results.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and repeatedly said he is the victim of a political witch hunt. He has accused Smith of attempting to interfere in the 2024 presidential election by prosecuting him.
