Donald Trump is seeking to block his former vice president, Mike Pence, from testifying before a federal grand jury investigating the former president’s efforts to interfere in the transfer of power following the 2020 election, two people familiar with the matter said Saturday.
Trump’s attorneys are asserting executive privilege in a sealed motion, a tactic the former president has attempted to use to block key witnesses from providing testimony to a House committee that investigated the Capitol attack and the federal investigation led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.
The motion was filed Friday, the sources said. The legal action was first reported by CNN
Pence had already vowed to resist the special counsel’s subpoena, calling the move “unprecedented and unconstitutional.”
“We’ll stand on that principle, and we’ll take that case as far as it needs to go — if need be to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Pence said last month. “Because to me, it’s an issue of the separation of powers.”
Pence is making a different argument, apart from executive privilege, saying he is shielded by the Constitution’s “speech or debate clause,” which protects members of Congress from law enforcement scrutiny over their speech and debate in the chamber. The clause says they “shall not be questioned in any other place.”
“On the day of Jan. 6, I was acting as President of the Senate, presiding over a joint session described in the Constitution itself,” he told reporters. “And so I believe that that Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution actually prohibits the executive branch from compelling me to appear in a court, as the Constitution says, or in ‘any other place.’”
Representatives for Pence could not be immediately reached for comment by USA TODAY.
The specific arguments asserted in the Trump motion were not immediately clear because the filing is under seal, but the court action could serve to draw out the special counsel’s attempt to compel Pence’s testimony.
Trump’s lawyers took the action shortly before the former president addressed a gathering of supporters Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The former president, as he has repeatedly claimed, accused prosecutors of investigating him in order to derail his presidential bid.
