A Republican lawmaker claimed Thursday that Mike Pence’s life “wasn’t really in peril” on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of offended Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and chanted about hanging Trump’s vice chairman.
In a newly unsealed court docket submitting, particular counsel Jack Smith, who’s prosecuting Trump’s federal election interference case, revealed the previous president appeared detached when his aides knowledgeable him that Pence needed to be evacuated from the Senate after Trump had despatched out a tweet accusing his No. 2 of missing the “courage” to dam the certification of the electoral votes from the 2020 election.
“So what?” Trump had requested upon listening to the information, in accordance with Smith.
Nonetheless, the anecdote was not sufficient to persuade Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who spoke on CNN’s “Inside Politics” on Thursday, that Trump had actually put Pence’s life in peril.
“I don’t think that that should be categorized as anything other than hyperbole,” Mast stated, in accordance with a clip of the interview shared by Mediaite.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS through Getty Photographs
Mast, one of many 147 Republicans who refused to certify the election consequence after the Jan. 6 riot, wouldn’t relent even when CNN’s Manu Raju reminded him that a few of Trump’s supporters chanting to “hang Mike Pence” on Jan. 6 got here inside placing distance of the previous vice chairman earlier than he was evacuated.
“His life wasn’t really in peril,” Mast stated. “He was protected by Secret Service. That is a fact.”
Smith’s court docket submitting lays out Trump’s repeated efforts to persuade Pence to hold out his scheme to overturn the 2020 election consequence. Pence, although, refused to associate with his plan, incomes Trump’s wrath.
The now-defunct Home choose committee tasked with investigating the revolt revealed that members of Pence’s safety element have been so nervous concerning the violence on Jan. 6 that they made calls over the radio to say goodbye to their family members.
“The VP detail thought that this was going to get very ugly,” a former White Home nationwide safety official informed the committee in testimony.
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