Mike Pence feared for his life on Jan. 6. Americans deserve to understand why.
The Jan. 6 committee owes Americans clarification of exactly how realistic Mike Pence’s fear of Trump was during the hours of the insurrection.
Forty feet. That’s the distance that separated Vice President Mike Pence from a violent angry mob at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. We learned this during Thursday’s hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, which provided additional riveting evidence of the real threats posed by then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn a free and fair election. For Pence, those threats were existential – to our democracy – and direct — to his life. But as we also learned Thursday, there may have been a threat much closer than 40 feet.
Pence’s former counsel Greg Jacob told the committee that he was present in a secure underground portion of the Capitol complex where the U.S. Secret Service whisked Pence in an attempt to avoid the mob that had breached the Capitol. The head of Pence’s Secret Service detail was there, and Pence’s armored limousine was also positioned in that safe space, just inches from the vice president. Still, it seems from Thursday’s testimony that the vice president wasn’t feeling all that safe.
