(PresidentialHill.com)- The Department of Justice is not going to receive the testimony of former Vice President Mike Pence as easily as they hoped they would.
On Wednesday, Trump announced that he would challenge the subpoena that was sent to him by Jack Smith, the special counsel who the DOJ appointed to oversee investigations into former President Donald Trump. Pence, who had a very public falling out with his former boss, said that if it were necessary, he’d fight the subpoena all the way up to the Supreme Court.
The investigations being led by Smith revolve around the efforts by Trump and some allies to overturn the presidential election in 2020. In the days leading up to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021, Trump tried to pressure Pence to not certify the results of the Electoral College.
Trump said that Pence had the power to do so – and award Trump the presidency – since he was the de facto president of the Senate, which is a title the vice president holds. Pence, however, maintained that he had no constitutional authority to do so.
That led to Trump separating himself completely from Pence. When he runs for election in 2024, Trump will do so with a new running mate. It’s even possible that Pence will be one of his main competitors in the GOP primary.
That had many people wondering whether Pence would end up complying with the DOJ subpoena. Now, he has made it very clear that he doesn’t intend to cooperate.
As Pence said while meeting with reporters in Iowa earlier this week:
“Let me first be clear: I’m going to fight the Biden DOJ subpoena for me to appear before the grand jury because I believe it’s unconstitutional and it’s unprecedented. Never before in American history has a vice president been summoned to appear in court to testify against the president with whom they serve.”
The former vice president said he was even prepared to take his fight “as far as it needs to go, if need be to the Supreme Court of the United States.”
The Associated Press reported that this stance from Pence is a sudden turnaround. He’s been remaining relatively quiet in the two years since he left Washington, apparently laying groundwork for a potential presidential run for himself.
The AP said it wasn’t clear whether Pence would ultimately have any success fighting the subpoena. That being said, it still gives the former vice president an opening to verbally attack the DOJ and the Biden administration as a whole.
Pence levied criticisms at the DOJ earlier this week, saying there was a “two-tiered justice system that Republicans have been dealing with throughout the Biden administration.”
The former vice president is sticking to his claims that the subpoena is unconstitutional. He says that because he was vice president at the time of the attacks on January 6, 2021, he would be protected under what’s known as the “speech or debate” clause in the Constitution, which doesn’t require him to testify.
