Tag: Mike Pence

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Capitol Insurrection Donald Trump January 6 Mike Pence

Trump Was Hoping Pence And Members Of Congress Would Be ‘Killed Or Taken Hostage’ On Jan. 6: Report

Based on testimony from former Trump administration official Cassidy Hutchinson on Tuesday, it’s now clear that failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump wanted to see his vice president, Mike Pence, and members of Congress “killed or taken hostage” according to presidential historian Michael Beschloss.

During an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday morning, Beschloss noted:

“Everything that [Richard] Nixon did in the 1970s is put in the shade by what we have seen here. Nixon didn’t send armed terrorists up to the Capitol, and by everything that we are learning now what Donald Trump wanted to see on the 6th of January was violence. There’s every sign that he wanted to see members of Congress shot or killed or taken hostage, including his vice president, who, of course, is the president of the Senate.”

Beschloss added:

“Have we ever seen a president do 100th of that in the whole history of the United States? Historically, every other president is in one category. Donald Trump is in a category of his own.”

Consider a few more of the things Hutchinson revealed on Tuesday during her two hours of testimony, courtesy of New York magazine:

She said Trump was furious with his security officials, and she overheard him saying, “I don’t f- – -ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” Later, she said that Trump wanted them to march to the Capitol after his speech.

Previous witnesses had told the January 6 committee that Trump had been saying he wanted to march to the Capitol with his supporters in the weeks leading up to the rally, but Hutchinson revealed that Trump actually tried to go as soon as he finished his speech calling on the thousands assembled before him to march there. Trump boarded a vehicle with the Secret Service, thinking he was being taken to the Capitol.

As we’ve seen many times before, Donald Trump demands loyalty from others, but will toss anyone (even family) under the bus when it suits his purposes. That’s just plain evil.

Here’s Michael Beschloss on MSNBC:

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Capitol Insurrection Donald Trump January 6 Mike Pence The Trump Adminstration

Trump Complained About Pence Being Taken To Safety On 1/6 – Said VP Should Be Hung: Report

As rioters were storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021, then-President Donald Trump saw crowds of people chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and said he agreed with them, getting upset when it became clear that the vice president had been whisked to safety by the U.S. Secret Service.

According to The New York Times:

Shortly after hundreds of rioters at the Capitol started chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” on Jan. 6, 2021, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, left the dining room off the Oval Office, walked into his own office and told colleagues that President Donald J. Trump was complaining that the vice president was being whisked to safety.

Mr. Meadows, according to an account provided to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hung.

It is not clear what tone Mr. Trump was said to have used. But the reported remark was further evidence of how extreme the rupture between the president and his vice president had become, and of how Mr. Trump not only failed to take action to call off the rioters but appeared to identify with their sentiments about Mr. Pence — whom he had unsuccessfully pressured to block certification of the Electoral College results that day — as a reflection of his own frustration at being unable to reverse his loss.

Of course, this shouldn’t surprise anyone who actually knows what the failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president is capable of.

For example, Trump reportedly made fun of his own father, Fred Trump, as he faded into the darkness of Alzheimer’s disease, as first reported back in 2017 in the book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary Trump, the ex-president’s niece:

“Among the family drama that Trump is set to spill in the book is how the current US president ‘dismissed and derided’ his father ‘when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s,’ which he was diagnosed with in 1993, according to Simon & Schuster.”

Donald Trump is a complete asshole. He always has been, even as a child:

Dennis Burnham was four years younger and lived around the corner from Donald. He inherited his own impression of his neighbor from his mother, who warned that he should “stay away from the Trumps.”

“Donald was known to be a bully, I was a little kid, and my parents didn’t want me beaten up,” said Burnham, 65, a business consultant in Texas.

Once when she left Dennis in a playpen in a back yard adjoining the Trumps’ property, Martha Burnham returned to find Donald throwing rocks at her son. “She saw Donald standing at the fence,” Dennis Burnham said, “using the playpen for target ­practice.”

Should it surprise anyone that Donald was willing to see his own VP hang from a scaffold if it would allow him to remain as president indefinitely? If it does, then you simply haven’t been paying attention.

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Capitol Insurrection Donald Trump Mike Pence

Former Pence Staffers Are Being ‘Particularly Cooperative’ With House Jan. 6 Committee

In what can only be seen as the ultimate irony, it now appears that the evidence most likely to result in criminal charges being filed against failed, twice-impeached former President Donald Trump may be provided by staffers who once worked for former Vice President Mike Pence.

According to Axios, members of Pence’s staff have been “particularly cooperative” with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection:

People in and around former Vice President Mike Pence’s office have been particularly cooperative as the Jan. 6 select committee focuses on what former President Trump was doing during the more than three hours the Capitol was under attack, sources familiar with the testimony tell Axios.

The cooperation of those who had a front-row seat to what transpired on that horrible January day is key to the committee, which is on the verge of holding public hearings that could further expose Trump and members of his inner circle to criminal referrals the Justice Department would be hard-pressed to ignore.

Some of the former Pence staff members have even agreed to talk to the Jan. 6 panel without having to be subpoenaed:

  • Both Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short, and former press secretary Alyssa Farah, who later served as White House communications director, are among those cooperating with the committee.
  • Keith Kellogg also has given a deposition.
  • One source familiar with their involvement said Short, who was subpoenaed by the committee, would not have cooperated without the approval of Pence.

The committee has received the most helpful information from “second- and third-tier administration staff who were not directly involved but were at the White House on Jan. 6 and had access to top administration officials.”

After speaking with the committee, Farah noted:

“You could see how much information they already had.

“Those who are refusing to cooperate likely are doing so out of complete fealty to Donald Trump and not wanting to piss him off.

“But, secondarily, because they’re realizing the committee has quite a bit more information than they realized. And their involvement is known to a much greater degree than they realized.”

The upcoming public hearings could prove to be a tipping point that will convince the majority of Americans Trump and members of his staff need to be held accountable and prosecuted for their crimes. And they should also make for the most fascinating television since the Watergate hearings back in 1974.