On Wednesday night, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Donald Trump could not claim executive privilege to prevent his former vice president Mike Pence from testifying before the grand jury that's hearing evidence for special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the former president's activities leading up to January 6. Immediately on Thursday morning Pence testified for more than five hours. I guess they didn't want to waste any more time.
Pence and his team had negotiated with the special counsel for months to avoid having to do a voluntary interview and ended up filing a lawsuit to prevent testifying under subpoena. He claimed that as president of the Senate, he could not be compelled to testify under the speech and debate clause of the Constitution which protects members of Congress. A judge partially bought the argument. Pence was told he must testify — but he can avoid answering questions about his legislative role on Jan. 6.
