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Mike Pence Still Walks a Shaky Line Between Courage and Cold Feet

Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

I’m a witness. Pence delivered his remarks at the 138th annual Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner, an ancient, nontelevised dinner in which journalists and political figures in speeches and songs make fun of each other.

Trump also addressed the gathering in one of his presidential years, but never returned, despite our repeated invitations. I was club president in 2015 and somehow still have been allowed to offer my own attempts to sing and dance.

Be happy and perhaps relieved that my performance was not televised. The program is off the record, although the speeches are not.

Tradition calls for three speakers, who this year were Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the White House, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy for the Democrats and Pence for the GOP.

Pence was appropriately funny for most of his short speech. “I read that some of those classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago were actually stuck in the president’s Bible,” Pence quipped, “which proves he had absolutely no idea they were there.”

But he also was passionately blunt about the predicament in which Trump had put him — and the nation — on Jan.6.

Pence said Trump was “wrong” in claiming that the vice president had the authority to overturn the election results. “I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence said.

Pence also slammed efforts by some to rewrite that day as a “peaceful tourist visit,” noting that “tourists don’t injure 140 police officers by sightseeing.” Pence appeared to be referring to Carlson and others who have tried to pretend that ample footage of graphic violence on Jan. 6 doesn’t exist.

Trump’s “reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day,” Pence said. “I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

 

Yet, I must ask, how can history or anyone else properly hold the former president accountable if Pence won’t share details of his interactions with Trump leading up to the 2020 election and the day of the attack on the Capitol?

Why did Pence recently file a motion to block a federal grand jury subpoena seeking his testimony in the investigation of that attack.

And why, for that matter, has he stonewalled efforts to provide the American people — and the Department of Justice investigating Jan. 6 — a full accounting of all the events surrounding that day?

“The American people have a right to know what took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Pence said.

That’s right, sir. I wish you would do more to help us find out.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

©2023 Clarence Page. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.


(c) 2023 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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