Pence: ‘I would consider’ testifying to Jan. 6 committee

In reality, the previous vp, who is usually reticent to speak about his expertise on Jan. 6, 2021 — when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the counting of Electoral Votes and chanted “hang Mike Pence” — appeared uncharacteristically open to speaking about it down the road, maybe within the memoir he referenced that’s scheduled to be launched simply after November’s midterm elections.

“The American people have a right to know what happened,” Pence mentioned. “And in the months and years ahead, I’ll be telling my story even more frequently.”

The Jan. 6 panel has weighed whether or not to formally search Pence’s testimony for months, with members at occasions suggesting they would like to carry the previous vp in to hear his model of occasions.

There is one piece of evidence that solely Pence could also be geared up to present: His responses to Trump throughout their closing telephone name on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump apparently berated Pence for refusing to help his plan to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory on the joint session of Congress that day.

But the committee has at different factors indicated it might not want to hear instantly from Pence, whose closest advisers have testified at size and offered the panel with a few of its most vital revelations. The panel declined remark Wednesday morning.

Two of Pence’s high aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob, just lately testified earlier than a Washington, D.C., grand jury investigating efforts by Trump and his administration to disrupt the switch of energy. Their testimony to the choose committee helped kind the idea of a federal judge’s assessment that Trump had seemingly dedicated a number of crimes linked to Jan. 6.

Trump loomed massive over Pence’s return to New Hampshire and to Politics & Eggs, an all-but-required cease for these with presidential ambitions visiting the first-in-the-nation main state.

Pence minimized mentions of Trump in his speech, itemizing off the accomplishments of the “Trump-Pence administration” earlier than urging people to refocus on the midterms “because elections are about the future.”

“We need to do more than criticize and complain,” Pence mentioned. “We need to unite our movement around the bold, optimistic agenda that will give real solutions to the American people.”

Pence’s solely formal acknowledgement of the now-chilly relationship between him and his former boss — “it’s fairly well known that President Trump and I have had our differences” — was laughed away by a crowd filled with big-name New Hampshire Republicans together with Fred Doucette, who chaired Trump’s New Hampshire campaigns in each 2016 and 2020.

In his remarks on Wednesday, Pence appeared keen to carve an electoral lane for himself distinct from Trump with out disparaging the previous president, who stays enormously standard and influential throughout the Republican Party.

“There’s no question from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump we have had our share of big personalities in this party, and I expect we will again,” Pence mentioned. “But I must tell you, when I spoke to crowds large and small across this country, it was the ideas that created the roar, it was the commitment to those American values that brought people out.”

The former vp is certainly one of a number of high-profile Republicans – Trump included – to trace at a presidential marketing campaign in 2024. Pence did little on Wednesday to dispel speak that he may mount a 2024 White House bid.

“I’ve never spent a lot of time in New Hampshire, but I may someday,” he mentioned.

Pence’s message at occasions fell flat among the many crowd of New Hampshire and Massachusetts bigwigs who gathered to see the previous vp. He acquired solely a smattering of applause when he spoke of being a “small part of an administration” that appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court that despatched “Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history where it belongs.” Abortion rights are popular among voters in both states.

But he stays a draw for New Hampshire Republicans keen to assist their occasion take management of the House and Senate this fall and maintain onto energy on the state home. Pence had a number of extra stops in New Hampshire on Wednesday, together with occasions with conservative candidates for the state legislature.

“He’s one of the top handful of nationally prominent Republicans, political Republicans, who can draw really good crowds of people,” Chris Ager, the Republican National Committeeman for New Hampshire, mentioned in an interview forward of Pence’s speech. “People want to hear what he has to say.”

Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.