Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/National Park Service
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s reported plans to argue that the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause exempts him from complying with a grand jury subpoena issued in the Jan. 6 special counsel investigation makes him a “faux institutionalist”—someone who claims to be protecting our democratic institutions when they are really protecting themselves.
Pence apparently reasons that his former role as president of the Senate makes any inquiry by the Justice Department into what he knows about the events of Jan. 6 an off-limits separation of powers violation because he was performing “legislative” duties.
According to a Politico source, Pence is so worried about protecting the Constitution that “he feels duty-bound to maintain that protection, even if it means litigating it.” How convenient for Pence that refusing to testify helps him politically by looking like he is fighting against participation in a criminal probe damaging to former President Trump.