Former Vice President Mike Pence is usually a serious man, but his latest reported legal gambit is laughably fatuous.
If the reports are true that Pence plans to fight a subpoena by claiming immunity due to the Constitution’s “speech or debate clause,” then he is engaged in cheap grandstanding.Special counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena demands Pence’s testimony before a grand jury that is examining former President Donald Trump’s effort to overrule the 2020 presidential election's results.
Second, Pence must convince a judge that the “speech or debate clause” is applicable to whatever specific information the grand jury seeks. Again, poppycock. Even if the vice president actually is a senator and thus protected by the clause, which he isn’t, the clause won’t protect him. The clause isn’t a generic “get out of jail” card, much less a “get out of testifying” allowance for just any reason.
Here, we have a non-legislative-branch official being asked about executive branch discussions concerning non-legislative acts. In his conversations with Trump, Pence was no more engaging in protected “speech or debate” in the Senate than he was making tackles in the Super Bowl.
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