A Republican lawmaker claimed Thursday that Mike Pence’s life “wasn’t really in danger” on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of angry Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and chanted about hanging Trump’s vice president.
In a new public court filing, special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump’s federal election interference case, revealed that the former president appeared indifferent when his aides told him that Pence should be evacuated from the Senate after Trump sent a tweet accusing him of being No. . 2 of lacking the “courage” to block the certification of the electoral votes for the 2020 elections.
“And then?” Trump had asked when he heard the news, Smith said.
Still, the anecdote wasn’t enough to convince Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), speaking Thursday on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” that Trump had truly endangered Pence’s life.
“I don’t think this should be categorized as anything other than hyperbole,” Mast said, according to a clip of the interview shared by Mediaite.
Mast, one of 147 Republicans who refused to certify the election results after the Jan. 6 riot, wouldn’t budge even when CNN’s Manu Raju reminded him that some Trump supporters who called for Mike Pence on Jan. 6 to hang, shots came within range of the former vice president before he was evacuated.
“His life wasn’t really in danger,” Mast said. “He was protected by the Secret Service. That is a fact.”
Smith’s lawsuit details Trump’s repeated attempts to convince Pence to carry out his plan to overturn the 2020 election results. However, Pence refused to agree to his plan, which angered Trump.
The now-defunct House committee charged with investigating the insurrection revealed that members of Pence’s security detail were so concerned about the violence on January 6 that they radioed in to say goodbye to their loved ones.
“The VP detail thought this was going to get really ugly,” a former White House national security official told the committee in testimony.
