President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence hold a news conference, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Washington D.C., March 22, 2020.
Yuri Gripas | Reuters
Attorneys for former President Donald Trump are trying to block ex-Vice President Mike Pence from testifying in a special counsel investigation of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, NBC News reported Monday.
The latest move in the sealed court proceedings came less than a week after Pence said he would not fight a judge’s order for his testimony before the federal grand jury involved in the probe.
Trump’s legal team has appealed that order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., NBC reported, citing a source familiar with the litigation. The notice to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is currently under seal.
The reported appeal also followed Trump’s historic indictment and arrest in a separate case being prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records during his arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday.
As Pence prepares to comply with the subpoena in the investigation targeting his former boss, he is considering launching a 2024 presidential campaign that would put him in direct competition with Trump, the current Republican frontrunner.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, in a statement to CNBC accused the Department of Justice of “attempting to destroy the long accepted, long held, Constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.”
The spokesman, who also derided special counsel Jack Smith’s probe as a “witch hunt,” said those standards “protect a President’s ability to confer with his Vice President on matters of the security of the United States.” He also asserted that the probe was intended to influence Trump’s standing in the 2024 election.
Attorneys for Trump and spokespeople for Pence and the special counsel did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Pence previously said he planned to challenge Smith’s subpoena for his testimony, arguing that his former role as vice president — which also made him president of the Senate — granted him constitutional cover against being compelled to testify about key pieces of the probe.
Boasberg ordered Pence to comply with the grand jury subpoena late last month, NBC reported. The judge reportedly ruled that Pence has some protections against testifying about his role on Jan. 6, 2021, when he presided over Congress’ efforts to confirm President Joe Biden‘s 2020 electoral victory.
But Pence was not totally immune from testifying, Boasberg ruled. The judge also rejected arguments put forward by Trump’s attorneys against the subpoena on the grounds of executive privilege
Last week, an advisor for Pence said that their legal claim “prevailed” as Boasberg’s ruling “affirmed for the first time in history that the Speech or Debate Clause extends to the Vice President of the United States.”
“Having vindicated that principle of the Constitution, Vice President Pence will not appeal the Judge’s ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law,” the advisor’s statement said.
