A new setback for former President Donald Trump and the federal criminal
investigation into his actions surrounding January six.
Trump has lost an emergency attempt to block former Vice President
Mike Pence from testifying about their direct communications.
Trump has repeatedly tried and failed
to block at least a dozen witnesses from testifying.
CNN's Caitlin Paul joins us now.
Caitlin Pence announced not long ago
that he will be willing to testify so what happens next?
Well, Sara, Mike Pence could be going before
that grand jury as soon as today because the D.C.
Circuit Court of Appeals, the appeals court
that issued this order last night, they essentially they
they basically told Trump that he's losing the whole ballgame here.
He may be able to continue on with appeals, trying and arguing
executive privilege,
but he's not going to be able to block Mike Pence from going into the grand jury.
Pence is saying he's willing to testify.
So now we're waiting and watching the court to see
if he does show up when he does show up to give that unprecedented testimony.
Sara, this is no small thing.
There have been many, many witnesses brought in by special counsel Jack Smith
to testify to the grand jury in the January 6th investigation in the D.C.
federal court.
But Mike Pence is a vice president testifying against the president.
He served under divulging conversations between
just those two men, the two leaders of the country.
Normally, they don't share those types of things,
but it is a situation where a grand jury needs information.
We don't know exactly what the courts are saying.
To say that Trump loses here and Mike Pence needs to testify at this stage.
But it's very clear that when a grand jury needs this sort of information,
the secrecy around the presidency falls away.
And so Pence, when he goes to the grand jury, is very likely to be divulging
under oath exactly what was said, what he can recall about the conversations
Trump had with him when he was pressuring him after the election
the whole way up to the morning of January six, saying
that he believed Mike Pence could block the outcome of the election.
Pence, of course, was telling him no.
That always all is going to become part of this January 6th investigation.
But Pence, of course, is is just one
in many, many people who have been forced to go in by the courts.
Trump has lost four different appeals that he has tried to make, blocking
different testimony And Pence will ultimately be
at least one of a dozen people that are forced to go in here.
And not a small one at that. Sara.
Yeah, we were looking at all those names.
They're all insiders.
They all have information that the grand jury is going to hear from.
Thank you so much, Caitlin Polansky, appreciate you live from Washington.
Let's move on to some other
big legal stories, including Donald Trump losing another round in court.
And a judge saying Mike Pence
not only should testify before the special counsel grand jury,
but that Mike Pence should answer questions
about direct conversations with the press in the United States.
That's a huge deal.
It is a huge deal.
Now to set aside that Mike Pence and Donald Trump
and at the end of the day, this is an incredibly simple legal matter,
which is that
as a vice president
of the United States, the vice president is an officer of Congress.
And some of the statements
he makes or would be asked to make are going to be protected.
You know, like if asked about his direct duties
that he engaged in on January six, he has never talked about those.
But private conversations with the president conversations
in which crimes may have been discussed or criminal behavior
or potential evidence might have been discussed.
Of course, he ought to talk about that.
And there's really not much contested that I think we've gotten wrapped up
in the fact that it's these two outsized political personalities.
But no one should be surprised that we've talked many times
in recent months about the idea that you need to prove Donald Trump's
knowledge, that he actually lost his intent
to defraud the government, to steal the election, essentially
to defraud the government.
So Pence obviously could be critical to that as someone so close to him.
Right.
Number one,
did they talk about the election, which is clearly in the bounds of what
Pence could be asked about?
Number two, Pence's knowledge that that Trump might have lost.
Number three.
Any words of threats to Mike Pence, which themselves
might be actionable as maybe obstruction of justice or something like that.
So Pence could be an incredibly valuable witness,
even setting aside some of the things that he can't talk about.