Pence pivots, vows to ‘fight’ subpoena for testimony in Trump probe

On Wednesday, former Vice President Mike Pence stated his intention to fight a subpoena which would require him to testify before a grand jury who are investigating former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.  Pence said that he is willing to take his case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

“I’m going fight the Biden DOJ’s subpoena for me to appear before the grand jury because I believe it’s unconstitutional, and it’s unprecedented,” Pence told reporters after an event in Iowa.

“I’m aware that President Trump is going to bring a claim of executive privilege,” he added. “That will be his claim to make. That’s his fight. My fight is on the principle of separation of powers in the Constitution of the United States.”

A source close to the matter confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday Pence’s stance on the subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith.

Pence and his team say that serving as the former president of the Senate effectively makes him a member of the legislative branch and he would be protected from the subpoena under the “speech and debate” clause in the US Constitution.

Pence has remained steadfast on his claim that Trump was “wrong” to apply pressure on him to refuse to testify the election results on January 6^th.

“But that said, under the Constitution, in this moment, I believe my duty is also clear,” Pence said. “And that is, the Constitution prohibits an executive branch from summoning anyone into court for their legislative actions or duties, and on the day of Jan. 6, I was acting as president of the Senate, presiding over a joint session described in the Constitution itself.”

Legal experts told The Hill that Pence is pursuing an untested strategy and that it may not hold up in court.

“I really think that if Vice President Pence is successful in this, it will morph our understanding of separation of powers. I think that success for him is unlikely because the Constitution is very clear about which branch the vice president belongs to,” said Juliet Sorenson, a law professor at Northwestern University.