Another day, another leak.
Chief Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee ordered former Vice President Mike Pence to testify before a grand jury about his conversations with President Trump related to January 6.
Judge James Boasberg
This is an unprecedented attack on Trump’s authority and executive privilege which is derived from the constitutional separation of powers.
Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed Mike Pence in February.
Pence argued that as president of the Senate, he was acting as a member of the legislative branch on January 6 and is therefore protected by the DOJ’s demands.
Judge Boasberg ruled that Pence can decline to answer any questions about his time presiding over the senate.
However, Boasberg ordered Pence to testify to the grand jury about his conversations with President Trump, according to a leak to CNN.
Pence has previously stated he will appeal this ruling.
CNN reported:
A federal judge has decided that former Vice President Mike Pence must testify to a grand jury about conversations he had with Donald Trump leading up to January 6, 2021, according to multiple sources familiar with a recent federal court ruling.
But the judge said – in a ruling that remains under seal – that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to one of the sources.
The ruling from chief judge James Boasberg of the US District Court in Washington, DC, is a major win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is spearheading the Justice Department investigation. Pence still has the ability to appeal.
In the lead-up to the congressional certification vote, Pence faced enormous pressure from Trump and his allies to disrupt lawmakers’ plans to validate Joe Biden’s win. As president of the Senate, Pence was tasked with presiding over the certification proceedings.
To be clear, Obama-appointed Judge Beryl Howell flipped Trump’s own lawyer Eric Corcoran into a witness when she obliterated Trump’s attorney client privilege in a recent ruling.
Judge Howell ruled DOJ prosecutors ‘met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception’ for Trump’s attorney.
And now another Obama judge is ordering Pence to testify in a case against President Trump.
