Mike Pence crawls out from under the bus and comes out swinging

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Over the past week Donald Trump has publicly encouraged the media to investigate Mike Pence’s role in the Ukraine scandal, he’s leaked details of Pence’s role to the media, and he’s even had his lawyers argue in court that Pence can be indicted while he’s still in office. Pence couldn’t be any further under the bus, but now he’s coming out swinging.

Mike Pence is insisting that he never discussed the fake Biden scandal with the President of Ukraine, according to a new report this evening from MSNBC. Why is this a big deal? Pence is a frequent liar, but we don’t think he’d be stupid enough to lie about this, because the transcripts of his phone calls are going to come out anyway.

So let’s assume for the moment that Pence is telling the truth for once, and that he didn’t specifically tell the President of Ukraine in exact words that U.S. military aid would remain cut off unless Ukraine helped smear the Bidens. This still doesn’t get Pence off the hook. Thanks to Trump’s antics, the President of Ukraine already knew that he wasn’t getting his aid unless he played ball against the Bidens โ€“ and Pence knew full well what was going on.

But Mike Pence is now basically saying ‘Don’t look at me, Donald Trump is the real ringleader in this mess!’ It’s notable that Pence is finally coming out swinging just one day after Trump made a move that seemed to tip off that he might threaten to have Bill Barr’s DOJ indict Pence if he doesn’t resign. After all, with Pence gone, Republican Senators might be less likely to oust Trump. But now Pence isn’t having it. Will Trump and Pence end up taking each other down? It’s unlikely either of them will survive this, but there’s zero chance they both will โ€“ and they both know it.

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