Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are appealing a recent ruling from a federal judge that former Vice President Mike Pence must appear before a grand jury in the Department of Justice's (DOJ) investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol building and Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Both Trump and Pence attempted to block a grand jury subpoena, issued by special counsel Jack Smith in February, that ordered Pence to testify regarding his knowledge of Trump's plans to usurp the election. Trump tried to block the subpoena on grounds that letting Pence speak to the grand jury would violate his executive privilege, a claim that has been rejected numerous times by federal appellate courts and the Supreme Court in other investigations into Trump's alleged wrongdoings. Pence, on the other hand, argued that because he was president of the Senate during the January 6 Capitol attack, he was protected by the Constitution's "speech and debate" clause, which allows legislators to refrain from testifying on matters related to Congress's work.
