Dem
51
GOP
49
Well, that was fast. On Wednesday, a federal judge said that Donald Trump had no legal basis for stopping former VP Mike Pence from testifying about the 1/6 insurrection before a federal grand jury. And on Thursday, Pence testified.
How did this unfold so quickly? Was Pence in Washington anyhow? Perhaps even "on call," as he and special counsel Jack Smith waited for a ruling? Or did the former VP quickly hustle to the capital so he could get his testimony in before Donald Trump could appeal to the Supreme Court? We do not know, but we read several of the news stories about Trump losing in court, and none of them indicated Pence was champing at the bit to get his testimony on the record.
What we also do not know, of course, is what Pence actually said yesterday. That will come out in time; for now, the only thing that has been made public is that the testimony lasted about 5 hours. That sounds like the sort of session in which matters of real substance were addressed, as opposed to a string of invocations of the speech and debate clause and the Fifth Amendment. But again, that's just a guess, as Smith had no comment for reporters when contacted by them.
It is also the case that, as a general rule, the inner layers of the onion are the last ones to be peeled before it's time to take action. There aren't too many people closer to the center of the onion than Pence was, and so the endgame could be nigh upon us. Could make for an interesting summer. (Z)