berg80
Diamond Member
- Oct 28, 2017
- 17,817
- 14,952
- 2,320
This new emphasis on Trump’s lack of official responsibilities in relation to the electoral count is crucial for how the superseding indictment addresses the pressure on Vice President Mike Pence. Recall that Trump sought to bully Pence into leveraging his role presiding over the formal electoral count as president of the Senate to somehow swing the vote for Trump—a demand that Pence refused. The Court declared that “Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct,” on the grounds that “our constitutional system anticipates that the President and Vice President will remain in close contact regarding their official duties.”
It is Smith’s obligation, the high court contends, to rebut that presumption. And in his handling of the Pence allegations, he’s signaling that he intends to do just that. Throughout the superseding indictment, nearly every reference to Pence has been augmented with a reference to his role on Jan. 6 as president of the Senate, almost like a Homeric epithet. The suggestion is that Trump’s pressure on Pence couldn’t have been related to the former’s “official duties”—especially given that Pence was playing a constitutional role in presiding over the legislative branch, over which the president has no authority. To drive this point home, the superseding indictment states, “All of the conversations between the Defendant and Vice President described below focused on the Defendant maintaining power.”
