President Trump asked a federal court on Friday to block Mike Pence from providing testimony to a grand jury regarding efforts to challenge the 2020 the election.
Special Counsel Jack Smith last month filed a motion to compel former Vice President Mike Pence to testify.
Pence resisted the grand jury subpoena for his testimony about Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election.
Mike Pence’s lawyers 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.
President Trump said matters involving Mike Pence are covered by executive privilege in a court filing on Friday.
CNN reported:
Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal court to block former Vice President Mike Pence from speaking to a grand jury about certain matters covered by executive privilege as part of the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss, sources familiar with the move told CNN.
The request, in a new filing submitted secretly in a sealed proceeding on Friday, comes after the Trump team had already indicated to special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into Trump, that the former president intended to assert privilege over Pence’s testimony.
The DOJ had previously asked a judge to compel Pence’s appearance before the grand jury, CNN reported last week.
It is unclear how long it will take for the sealed proceedings to unfold, but it’s possible that the district court resolves the dispute, or that it will be appealed to a federal appeals court and perhaps, eventually, to the US Supreme Court.
