Mike Pence will testify against Donald Trump at trial
Over the weekend Mike Pence dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. This led to the bizarre narrative being voiced on MSNBC – by a pair of legal experts who know better – that this will “could increase the likelihood” that Pence will end up testifying at Donald Trump’s criminal trial. Huh?
As a reminder, when you’re a witness to a crime but you’re not a suspect in that crime, and you’re subpoenaed by a grand jury or trial jury, you are automatically required to testify. It’s not optional. There’s no such thing as “flipping” in this situation, you just have HAVE to testify. Or you go to prison for obstruction of justice. There is no getting out of testifying in this scenario. There is no fighting it. There is no running out the clock. And if you’re looking for a reminder of this fact, all you have to do is look back at… Mike Pence.
Several months ago Jack Smith subpoenaed Pence to testify against Trump to the grand jury that was in the process of indicting Trump. At that point Pence was automatically required to testify, and there was a 100% chance he would end up testifying. Pence made a show of trying to “fight” the subpoena in court, but that very quickly failed (like he knew it would), because there is no such thing as getting out of a jury subpoena.
Pence only acted like he was fighting the grand jury subpoena in order to score political points with right wingers. But during the brief time in which Pence was “fighting” the subpoena, MSNBC (and the Twitter pundits trying to get booked on MSNBC) largely tried to sell us on the fictional notion that Pence would be able to magically “run out the clock” and would never end up having to testify. This nonsense kept being hyped right up until the day Pence testified – and then the media largely framed this obvious development as if it were a shock. Even though it always had a 100% chance of happening.
Now here we are again, with MSNBC (and the people trying to get booked on MSNBC) once again pretending as if witnesses like Mike Pence have some choice about whether they want to testify at Donald Trump’s trial. But this is la la land stuff. It has zero connection to how the legal system works. The odds of Pence testifying at Trump’s trial were already 100%. How can those odds go up now that he’s dropped out of the race? What’s higher than 100%?
But these are the kinds of fictional narratives that the media routinely subjects us to. They’re pretending there’s suspense as to whether Mike Pence will end up “deciding” to testify at Trump’s trial, as if that’s somehow a “decision” that Pence gets to make. We’ll likely keep hearing this nonsense right up until the day Pence takes the stand in the trial – at which point the media will once again present this obvious development as if it were some kind of shock.
