A former federal prosecutor has come forward to insist that just seven words uttered by former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in regard to declining his testimony before the House Select Committee investigating the events of and leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol building should bar him from ever again holding any position of public office.
Last Thursday, Glenn Kirschner appeared in a YouTube video in which he harshly criticized Pence’s recent argument that Congress has no inherent right to his testimony in regard to the infamous events of January 6. Though in the past Pence claimed that he was open to the idea of testifying before the House Select Committee, he has since gone on to shut that idea down, saying: “Congress has no right to my testimony on separation of powers under the Constitution of the United States.”
The former Vice President also added: “And I believe it will establish a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a vice president of the United States to speak about deliberations that took place at the White House.”
Kirshner worked as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for over twenty years, and has since openly stated that Congress has very legitimate and sound reasons to be probing into Donald Trump’s failed attempt to halt the certification of the 2020 president election result (which saw Trump lose to Democratic nominee Joe Biden.)
Pence is currently a potential Republican candidate for the upcoming presidential election in 2024, and according to Kirshner, has “some of the most directly relevant evidence to what happened.”
“Let’s be clear,” he continued, “By extension, Mike Pence is saying, ‘The American people have no right to my relevant testimony as Congress goes about trying to craft laws to keep this from ever happening again.”
“Those seven words,” Kirshner went on, referencing Pence’s statement of ‘Congress has no right to my testimony’, “I contend, disqualify Mike Pence from ever holding public office again.”
His sentiment carried the idea that Pence’s denial to offer his testimony and present relevant information that the House Select Committee will likely never be privy to otherwise is a direct disservice to the American people, and thus, should keep Pence from ever stepping into another position of political power in the country. Similar sentiments to Kirshner’s have been echoed over the days since Pence confirmed he would not be willingly offering his testimony to the House Select Committee.
For now, it remains to be seen if such ideals will spill over into the upcoming elections, but the possibility of that coming to fruition cannot be ignored.
