The subpoena to former Vice President Mike Pence is a milestone moment in an ongoing Justice Department special counsel investigation. But it doesn't guarantee he's going to be testifying before a grand jury anytime soon.
Pence is the latest official in former President Donald Trump’s administration to be subpoenaed as part of the investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, but the push for Pence’s testimony is unique because he’s the highest-ranking official known to have been summoned.
“This will be fairly straightforward because the Department of Justice will be able to make a very compelling showing for the testimony,” said W. Neil Eggleston, a former White House counsel in the Obama administration. Some of the Trump loyalists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as Pence was presiding over the counting of electoral votes chanted ” “Hang Mike Pence!” as the vice president was steered to safety.
In the event he does ultimately testify, a subpoena might give him a degree of political cover, helping him avoid further alienating Trump supporters he may need for his own election bid by allowing him to say that he was compelled to cooperate rather than did so voluntarily. The Supreme Court made that clear in a 1974 decision that forced President Richard Nixon to turn over damning Oval Office recordings, saying using the principle to “withhold evidence that is demonstrably relevant in a criminal trial would cut deeply into the guarantee of due process of law and gravely impair the basic function of the court.”
Former Trump administration national security adviser Robert O’Brien has also been subpoenaed by the special counsel as part of the Jan. 6 investigation and a separate probe into the presence of classified documents at Trump’s Florida estate, according to a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss the action.