Pence, who narrowly escaped a violent mob of Trump supporters that stormed the Capitol on January 6, has been relatively quiet in the days since he attended President Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20.
Trump’s second impeachment trial was prompted by the then-president’s remarks before the riots broke out, challenging the authenticity of Biden’s election. Trump, a prolific Twitter user, was then banned from the social media site and has been relatively quiet in Florida in the weeks since.
Pence hasn’t tweeted since the trial started Tuesday, and he has made no public statements, even as never-before-seen security video used as evidence in the trial showed law enforcement ushering Pence; his wife, then-Second Lady Karen; and his daughter, Charlotte, off the Senate floor just moments before rioters breached the chamber. Outside the Capitol, the mob chanted that they wanted to “hang” Pence and erected a makeshift noose after he released a statement saying he would follow his Constitutional duties to certify Biden’s election, despite Trump’s urging to overrule state certifications.
The Associated Press reported last week that Pence is currently living in Northern Virginia and plans to move back to Indiana later this year.
Newsweek’s multiple attempts this week to reach Pence were unsuccessful.
On Twitter, Pence has announced that he’s joining the Young America’s Foundation as a Ronald Reagan Presidential Scholar. In that role, he’s expected to launch a podcast.
“Long before I became Vice President to President Donald Trump, the vision and leadership of Ronald Reagan inspired my youth and I am humbled to continue the work of advancing the Conservative cause from a position bearing his name,” Pence tweeted.
Several U.S. Senators who are hearing the impeachment arguments, on schedule to wrap up Saturday, said they had not spoken to the former vice president.
Senator Mike Braun, a Republican from Pence’s home state of Indiana, said he wasn’t aware of anyone in the Senate recently talking to Pence, and he was under the impression that Pence had already moved back to Indiana.
“I’ve not heard much in terms of media other than he’s probably needing a period of recharge and kind of just decompress,” Braun told reporters Thursday. “There’s not been much coverage in the newspapers I read locally or back home.”
The House Democrats serving as impeachment managers, presenting the case for Trump’s conviction, showed evidence that Trump called Senator Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, and asked him to help stall the certification, even as rioters stormed the building.
“I said ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Tuberville told reporters he replied to Trump before cutting the call short.
Around that time Trump tweeted an attack on Pence, claiming that his vice president lacked “courage” to override the election results certified by the states.
Democrats have hammered the point that Pence, a loyal ally of Trump through their tenure together, was put in danger during the siege. Pence is a former member of the U.S. House, former governor of Indiana and a conservative firebrand with his own coterie of allies in the Senate, where most Republicans are opposed to convicting Trump.
“How could the president of the United States–watching what was going on, knowing that his vice president was in the chamber, being notified that he’d been removed by Secret Service–not know that [Pence’s] life was in danger,” Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, told reporters Friday. “How could you miss that? My family—just watching the riot unfolding [on television]—were out of their minds with worry. How could the president of the United States not know that there was an angry mob assaulting the Capitol?”
Trump attorney David Schoen rejected the idea that Trump had contributed to the danger Pence faced.
“There’s no possible way the president would have welcomed any kind of danger to the vice president or condoned any kind of violence towards the vice president,” Schoen told reporters Thursday night. “He’s a great guy, that guy, Vice President Pence.”
