WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump is moving to block former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying before a federal grand jury investigating Trump’s role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a source familiar with the litigation.
The sealed appeal was filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit. It comes days after Pence’s adviser said the former vice president will not appeal an order by Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requiring Pence to testify in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump. Boasberg issued that ruling late last month.
“Vice President Mike Pence swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and his claim that the Biden special counsel’s unprecedented subpoena was unconstitutional under the speech or debate clause was an important one made to preserve the separation of powers outlined by our founders,” Pence adviser Devin O’Malley said in a statement last week.
“Vice President Pence will not appeal the Judge’s ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law,” O’Malley said.
It’s unclear when Pence would appear before the grand jury in Washington, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News last week.
The federal appeals court last week denied Trump’s appeal to block the testimony of several of his senior aides. That came after U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell’s ruled in March that Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and other aides, including Dan Scavino and Stephen Miller, must testify despite Trump’s invocation of executive privilege.
The move by the former president on Monday also comes after a New York grand jury indicted Trump, who was formally charged and arraigned last week in Manhattan. He pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his alleged role in hush money payments toward the end of his 2016 presidential campaign.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
