Mike Pence has tried his best to portray himself as innocent in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey. But new reporting shows he may very well be as deep in the muck as his boss.
Mike Pence is not above transparent mendacity if it might protect him and bolster his professions of innocence in the duplicitous dealings of his boss. As the FBI investigation into possible collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign began to zero in on Pence, he did a telling about-face, going from a previous definitive statement that there was “no evidence of collusion” to a more mealy-mouthed claim that he was “not aware” of any such contact or collusion. And Pence was shown to be lying at another point in this debacle by Donald Trump himself. Pence had insisted that Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey was based solely on the recommendation of deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — but Trump later said, on national television, that “regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.” Now, a report from the New York Times shows that Pence was in the Oval Office, alongside White House counsel Don McGahn, when Trump handed out copies of the letter he drafted with his adviser Stephen Miller that ordered Comey’s firing. McGahn prevented Trump from sending that letter, the Times notes. But that wasn’t the end of it: “A copy was given to the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who then drafted his own letter [that] was ultimately used as the Trump administration’s public rationale for Mr. Comey’s firing, which was that Mr. Comey had mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.” McGahn’s concerns, the Times states, “show how much he realized that the president’s rationale for firing Mr. Comey might not hold up to scrutiny.” And Pence, belying his past statements, was right there beside them as the letter was debated and those crucial concerns were raised. Thus, not only is Pence caught out in more dishonesty, he may also be implicated in obstruction of justice, as Jed Shugerman, a professor of law at Fordham University, noted in response to the revelations: