The real reason Mike Pence has dropped his appeal and agreed to testify against Donald Trump

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Mike Pence says he’s not appealing the court ruling ordering him to testify against Trump to the DOJ grand jury. I told you Pence would briefly make a big show of “fighting” this, to appeal to Trump’s base, then testify anyway. Pence wants the DOJ to take Trump out ahead of 2024.

Trump can still appeal. But without Pence joining him on that appeal, it should fail even more quickly. It would be a reasonable guess that Pence will testify before the month is over.

Pence can’t just lie during his testimony (the DOJ already knows most of what happened). Pence can’t just plead the fifth (you can only use it to avoid testifying against yourself, not to avoid testifying against others).

By the way, this has nothing to do with whether Pence has “grown a conscience” or “grown a spine” or “can be trusted to do the right thing.” Those concepts don’t exist for Republicans. There is only, “does this benefit me?” Pence can take Trump out of the 2024 field by testifying. Of course he’ll do it.

When a Republican occasionally does the right thing, it’s not for the sake of the right thing. It’s that it coincidentally happens to be what benefits them personally.

So yes, you can absolutely trust Mike Pence to go in there and give honest testimony against Trump, because it *benefits* him. Pence’s 2024 prospects are so much brighter if the DOJ has put Trump in prison before 2024 even gets underway.

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