Former Vice President Mike Pence’s Chief of Staff Marc Short said in an interview on Saturday that it would set a “very risky” precedent to have Pence speak to the January 6 committee.
Pence has become a central figure in the January 6 committee. Trump publicly pressured Pence to overturn the election results on Twitter and testimony given to the January 6 committee indicated that he pressured Pence privately as well.
Pence was also the subject of the rioters’ ire, with chants of “Hang Mike Pence” being heard through the crowd as they stormed the Capitol. Still, Short does not believe it would be in the nation’s best interests to have Pence testify.
Short also argues that Democrats may not want to set the precedent, because President Biden may be forced to talk about his family’s dealing in Ukraine.
“If you are going to begin having former Vice Presidents come under subpoena to testify, there is a former Vice President sitting in the Oval Office today. And I’m sure when Republicans take control of Congress this November, there will be those who want to have investigations into the Biden family’s discussions on Ukraine, what Hunter Biden was doing,” Short warned.
Short would then specifically mention the danger of revealing conversations between Vice Presidents and Presidents.
“Do you want a precedent where all the sudden you’re allowed to bring former vice presidents to talk about what they were doing when they were vice president, in the Congress to talk about their conversations with the president of the United States?” Adding, “I think it is a very risky precedent.”
Though the occasion is rare, both Presidents and Vice Presidents have been asked to speak in front of Congress while in power and afterward.
Vice President Schuyler Colfax spoke to the House Select Committee to Investigate Credit Mobilier after a newspaper claimed he had bought stock in the company, which had received federal subsidies to help in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. Those accusations were proven true during the committee.
More relevant, Gerald Ford spoke to the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and the House Judiciary Committee. Congress wanted to know if his pardon of former President Nixon was prearranged.
The committee was specifically asking Ford about conversations he had with then-President Nixon while he was a member of Congress and when he was the Vice President, the exact thing Short says doing now would set a new, dangerous, precedent.
Additionally, Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Harry S. Truman all spoke to Congressional Committees either before or after leaving office.
However, it is worth noting that every Vice President who spoke to Congressional Committees did so without being subpoenaed by Congress.
Three sitting Presidents have been subpoenaed by Congress in the past: Thomas Jefferson, who refused to comply, Richard Nixon who resigned before complying, causing Congress to drop the issue and Bill Clinton, whose subpoena was withdrawn after he agreed to testify voluntarily.
Short would also say in the interview that his conversation with Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the riot did not include asking Meadows if Trump was trying to secure the Capitol.