Former Vice President Mike Pence‘s repeated attempts to convince Donald Trump to accept he lost the 2020 election have been detailed in new court filings.
Special counsel Jack Smith‘s team listed multiple alleged discussionsTrump and Pence had in the post-2020 election period, including an apparent “face-saving option” from Pence that the former president should not publicly concede but “recognize the process is over.”
The conversations were relayed in a 165-page court filing from federal prosecutors and partly unsealed Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, just over a month before Election Day. The filing alleges Trump was well aware that he had lost the 2020 election because of conversations he had with his inner circle, but still “resorted to crimes” to stay in office.
Trump described Smith’s brief on Truth Social as a “falsehood-ridden, unconstitutional” filing submitted in response to Tim Walz‘s “disastrous” vice presidential debate performance.
Newsweek has contacted Smith’s office, Trump’s campaign team, and Pence’s office for comment via email outside of regular office hours.
The brief was submitted by Smith’s team in the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision granting Trump at least presumptive presidential immunity for officials acts performed while in office. The superseding indictment against Trump largely carries the four federal charges that the former president pleaded not guilty to. The updated fillings removed some allegations to keep in line with the Supreme Court ruling, essentially portraying Trump acting not as president but as a candidate for office.
The indictment kept claims Trump repeatedly pressured Pence to not certify the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021, while the vice president carried out his purely ceremonial role as presiding officer of the Senate.
The unsealed filings said one of the conversations Trump and Pence had in the wake of the 2020 election was the vice president stating he found no evidence of voter fraud that would have affected the outcome of the race.
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
The filings also say that Pence “gradually and gently tried to convince” Trump to accept the lawful results of the election, “even if it meant they lost.”
Prosecutors said, that in a call on November 7, 2020—the day when Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election by media organizations—Pence “tried to encourage” Trump “as a friend” to accept he lost, adding, “you took a dying political party and gave it a new lease on life.”
During a private lunch on November 12, 2020, prosecutors said Pence “reiterated a face-saving option” for Trump: “Don’t concede but recognize process is over.”
During another private lunch four days later, Pence again tried to encourage Trump to accept the results of the election and run for office again in 2024, according to the filing.
Trump allegedly replied: “I don’t know, 2024 is so far off.”
The filings added Pence had “encouraged” Trump not to look at the election “as a loss—just an intermission,” during another lunch on December 21, 2020.
Later that day, Trump allegedly asked Pence in the Oval Office “what do you think we should do?” regarding the legal challenges to the election results., to which Pence replied: “After we have exhausted every legal process in the courts and Congress, if we still came up short, [Trump] should ‘take a bow.'”
Many of the conversations listed in the court filings were first detailed in Pence’s 2022 autobiography, So Help Me God.
Prosecutors said that Trump “disregarded” Pence in the same way that he “disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies’ legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in the targeted states— including those in his own party— who stated publicly that he had lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false.”
Trump’s and Pence’s relationship fell apart in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
As the violence was unfolding on January 6, Trump tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done” by not certifying the results of the 2020 election.
Trump supporters were heard chanting “hang Mike Pence” in the corridors of the Capitol during the riot.
The court flings allege Trump told an aide “so what?” when the former president was informed Pence was in potential danger while Trump supporters were storming the building.
In his Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said. “The release of this falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional, J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz’s disastrous Debate performance, and 33 days before the Most Important Election in the History of our Country, is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
“Deranged Jack Smith, the hand-picked Prosecutor of the Harris-Biden DOJ, and Washington, D.C. based Radical Left Democrats, are HELL BENT on continuing to Weaponize the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power.”
Neama Rahmani, former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Newsweek the evidence in Smith’s motion is “pretty damning” for the former president.
“Of course, the prosecution still has to prove that Trump’s conduct was private to avoid dismissal based on presidential immunity. That’s why so much of the filing discusses Trump’s communications with private individuals like his private lawyers and campaign officials, which have historically been deemed not to be official acts,” Rahmani said.
“The motion is also important because it helps prove Trump’s knowledge that he lost the election and his intent to overturn the results nonetheless. By detailing Trump’s communications with his inner circle, Smith can get inside Trump’s head and prove the intent necessary for a criminal conviction.”
