Mike Pence testifies before the grand jury investigating Trump for the assault on the Capitol

The then Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, witnessed firsthand the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the attempts of his former boss, Donald Trump, to subvert the electoral result of the 2020 elections, in who had been defeated by Democrat Joe Biden.

This Thursday, Pence has been declaring for hours before the grand jury that is investigating whether the former president committed any crime with his actions in those days, according to sources cited by the AP agency and other US media.

The grand jury serves as an auxiliary and control body in the prosecution's investigations.

Approves citations, requirements and imputations.

You do not have to decide on guilt or innocence, you only have to conclude if there is sufficient evidence of crime.

The statements and deliberations are made behind closed doors, including this Thursday, the content of which has not been disclosed.

Unlike trial juries that hear the prosecution and the defense, grand juries only listen to the evidence and testimony offered by the prosecutor, giving him a distinct advantage.

As Pence himself recalled on the occasion of Trump's indictment in New York, there is a legal saying, authored by a New York judge in the 1980s, that prosecutors can convince a grand jury to "indict to a ham sandwich”.

Now it's not a sandwich, it's a plate of big game that Jack Smith, the special prosecutor investigating Donald Trump for his attempts to subvert the election result and for his handling of classified documents the FBI found while searching Mar- a-Lago, Trump's mansion in Florida.

Pence, who aspires to rival his former boss in the primaries for the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has made clear his discomfort with testifying.

He filed an appeal to prevent it, but lost.

However, Pence will not be required to testify about his actions on January 6, 2021, the date of the storming of the Capitol.

That takes away some of the interest from his testimony.

When summoned by the prosecutor, Pence alleged that on January 6 he was exercising his role as president of the Senate and that forcing him to testify violated the so-called "expression or debate clause" that protects congressmen from accounting for their parliamentary actions. .

Pence refused to comply with Trump's request to stop the certification of Biden's victory in Congress on January 6.

That refusal to subvert the election result earned him the ire of his former boss and his followers.

The mob chanted “let's hang Mike Pence” as he forced his way toward the Capitol.

Trump has also tried unsuccessfully to prevent his former vice president from testifying.

This same week it has been known that he has lost his last resort.

“We will obey the law, we will tell the truth,” Pence said in an interview with CBS News' “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday.

“And the story that I have been telling the American people across the country, the story that I wrote in the pages of my memoirs, that will be the story that I tell on that stage.”

Pence has spoken on numerous occasions about Trump's pressure to reject Biden's victory in the presidential election in the days leading up to January 6.

Pence oversaw the recount of Electoral College votes by Congress, but had no power to alter the results, despite Trump's claims to the contrary.

Pence was never formally summoned to testify in the House of Representatives committee that investigated the assault on the Capitol, although he always rejected the idea of ​​appearing before it.

At the time, he pointed out that the separation of powers would allow him to avoid that testimony in application of the so-called executive privilege.

Unlike the testimony in Congress, the allegation of executive privilege has not prevented other government officials from having to testify in the criminal investigation and now Pence has.

The commission that investigated the assault on the Capitol on January 6 recommended trying Trump for four crimes: incitement to insurrection, conspiracy to issue false testimony and to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official procedure of Congress, the vote to certify Biden's win.

In parallel, an Atlanta prosecutor is investigating Trump and several of his closest collaborators for the attempt to falsify the electoral result in Georgia.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is scheduled to announce in the coming months whether she will press charges.

Willis wrote a letter to the county police chief, Pat Labat, in which she tells him that she plans to announce the decision in the period from July 11 to September 1.

"In the near future, I will announce the impeachment decisions resulting from the investigation that my office has been conducting into possible criminal interference in the administration of the 2020 Georgia general election," says his letter, which has been released this week.

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