20,610 views May 3, 2023
According to a former Department of Justice official's recent op-ed, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith might be using Mike Pence to create new charges against Donald Trump. Specifically, the former official says, it is illegal to attempt to coerce someone into committing a felony with threats of violence, and it could be possible that Pence suggested Trump would be violent - or his supporters would be violent, more likely - if Pence didn't go along with the plan to overturn the election. Farron Cousins explains how this would work.
*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos. A former Department of Justice official by the name of Mary McCord, has penned an op-ed for N NBC News, where she talked about the fact that there is a good chance that special prosecutor Jack Smith, you know, who's looking into Trump's attempts to overturn the election, he may be using Mike Pence to charge Donald Trump with a, as they call it, obscure law, so you can hit 'em with even more criminal charges. Let me read this. According to Mary McCord, again, this is a former Justice Department official. She knows what the hell she's talking about. Here's what she said. The US code makes it a crime to solicit any other person to engage in conduct that is a felony under federal law involving the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against a person. In other words, a federal felony that is a crime of violence. Under this statute, the government must prove the defendant intended the person to commit a crime of violence, and that the defendant, under circumstances strongly corroborative of that intent, solicited, commanded, induced, or otherwise endeavored to persuade the other person to engage in such conduct. So basically, did Trump use the threat of force to try to convince Mike Pence to commit a felony? Because if he did, then that is another pretty serious criminal charge you can hit Donald Trump with on top of everything else you're probably already gonna hit him with. But did that happen, eh, when you look at the evidence, kind of seems like it did. And Mary McCord, of course, does a wonderful job of laying out all this evidence, not just based on what we know, but also based on what Mike Pence said in his own book. So Pence has already talked about all these things that happened, specifically a January 4th, 2021, two days. Of course, before the Capitol riot, there was a meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump Pence and lawyer John Eastman, among, among others, were on hand to debate whether Pence could refuse to accept the certification of the election. Pence writes about it in his book in which he explains that even Eastman acknowledged it wouldn't make it through the Supreme Court, but in Georgia that night, Trump continued public pressure on Pence saying, quote, I hope Mike Pence comes through for us. He called Pence a great vice president, but quote, of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much. The next day Trump tweeted, quote, the vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors. And it's important to remember that even after Trump had been told by his own lawyer, John Eastman, that Pence didn't have that authority, Trump still tweeted it out in an attempt to pressure Mike Pence. There's more, according to Pence's book, uh, quote, Trump told him, these people cheated, and you wanna play by marquees of Quinn of Queensbury rules. Hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts. Nah, that's, that's one of those things like that, even though it's a threat of the people will hate you, that could in the eyes of the law be construed as a threat, possibly even a threat of violence, which would fall under this criminal category. Uh, Trump continues. Uh, he tweeted this out. Actually, Trump did send them back to the States and we win. Do it. Mike, this is a time for extreme courage. Pence also says in his book that after that happened, Trump called him a wimp. And a, uh, another word that is, uh, not gonna say here, uh, but then Trump told the crowd at the ellipse on January 6th, I hope Mike is going to do the right thing, because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. He has the absolute right to do it.
