The MeidasTouch Podcast - BREAKING: Jack Smith lands BIGGEST TESTIMONY Yet Against Trump

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Former Vice President Mike Pence has announced he will not appeal the lower court’s ruling compelling him to testify about communications with Donald Trump before the federal criminal grand jury in Washington DC where Special Counsel Jack Smith is presenting evidence. Thanks to our sponsor Fast Growing Trees! Go to fastgrowingtrees.com/meidastouch right now to get 15% off your entire order. Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I'm Ben Micellis from the Midas Touch Network, and this is a breaking news alert. Another big win for special counsel Jack Smith and his criminal investigations of Donald Trump. We are now learning that former Vice President Mike Pence will not be filing an appeal to the district court order, which compelled him to testify before the criminal grand jury in Washington, DC folks. What this means is that in very short order, former vice president, Mike Pence will be providing under oath testimony, which he was previously trying to avoid before a criminal grand jury in Washington, D.C., about mostly all of the information he was privy to about Donald Trump's

conduct leading up to the January 6th insurrection. You will recall from our previous reporting that former Vice President Mike Pence had tried to object to the subpoena that he was issued by Special Counsel Jack Smith, dual role and also was the president of the Senate, he argued that for all of his legitimate legislative conduct that he engaged in as president of the Senate, he should be shielded from having to give testimony under Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, which is called the Speech and Debate Clause, which protects lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate from having to testify on issues that involve legitimate legislative activity. Judge James Boasberg, who is the new presiding judge, the new chief judge of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., almost in all regards overruled former Vice President Mike Pence's objections. limited period of time where you had this ceremonial role on January 6th as president

of the Senate, you could assert the speech and debate privilege for that short period of time. However, with all of the other communications you've had with Donald Trump, with all of your other observations, with everything else that took place leading up to the January 6th insurrection, when you were not in that ceremonial role, and also after the January 6th insurrection where you didn't have that ceremonial role where you were counting the electoral votes, you have to testify before the grand jury in Washington, D.C. This is something that former Vice President Pence tried to avoid. But now after losing in the district court where James Boasberg had ruled those objections that you're making on speech and debate privilege are incorrect. Pence is saying,

I am not going to even appeal this to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. I understand that I lost. I am going to go and testify now before the grand jury. Look, I think one of the reasons that Pence even asserted what I've always called a very frivolous objection under the speech and debate privilege of the United States Constitution was because Pence is a coward and Pence wanted cover. Pence wants to say, look, I tried to object. Look, all the MAGA people. I tried to object. I put up the speech and debate privilege, but a judge ordered me. And so I am just following what the judge is requiring me to do. I am not going to appeal this anymore. What Pence has not learned the lesson, as most of these MAGA Republicans have not, him doing that doesn't matter. I'm sure Donald Trump is going to start

attacking him again very, very soon, the same way Donald Trump attacks Bill Barr and any MAGA Republican who doesn't pledge full obedience to the MAGA Republican cult. And what you'll recall, though, it wasn't just Pence who lodged these objections to his testimony before the federal criminal grand jury that special counsel Jack Smith is submitting evidence to. Donald Trump's lawyers, on behalf of Trump, they asserted executive privilege, a different privilege assertion than Pence. So Pence asserted speech and debate privilege. Donald Trump's lawyers and affirmed the lower federal court's ruling that executive privilege didn't apply to people like former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and the

former National Security Advisor and former Social Media Director Dan Scavino and all of Donald Trump's former top aides. So the precedent that is created in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals means that Donald Trump will absolutely not be able to successfully appeal the executive privilege claim trying to block Pence. So what this means in total is that Pence will be testifying before the criminal grand jury in Washington, D.C. Just so you understand how frivolous former Vice President Pence's speech and debate privilege claim was, let me break it down for you right now. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, FastGrowingTrees.com.

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Now join over 1.5 million happy Fast Growing Trees customers. Go to fastgrowingtrees.com slash MidasTouch now to get 15% off your entire order. That's 15% off your entire order at fastgrowingtrees.com slash MidasTouch. And now back to the video. So Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution states the following. The senators and representatives shall receive a compensation for their services to be ascertained by law and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and the breach of peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session

of their respective houses and in going to and returning from the same. And for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be questioned in any other place. So that's the clause that former Vice President Mike Pence relies on. And there's a whole body of case law surrounding that clause. And one of the definitive cases is a 1972 United States Supreme Court case called Gravel v. 1972 United States Supreme Court case called Gravel versus the United States. It extends the doctrine of what constitutes legitimate legislative activity, not just to the lawmakers themselves, but also to their staffs. But it defines the contours of what is legitimate legislative activity. And if the conduct is legitimate legislative activity by members of the House of Representatives

and senators, even if it's technically outside of the floor of the House or the floor of the Senate, they can shield their testimony under speech and debate clause. However, legitimate legislative activity does not include crimes. It does not include exhortations, extorting, aiding and abetting criminal conduct. And it also does not include press statements and statements made to the press. The court said these categories fall outside of what would otherwise be legitimate legislative conduct. And you may recall, because we did a report on it, Lindsey Graham, an actual senator from South Carolina,

he tried to assert speech and debate clause immunity so as to not testify before the Fulton County District Attorney's special grand jury that was taking evidence about Donald Trump's election interference there. And ultimately, what the federal court all the way up to the United States Supreme Court said is based on the precedent of Gravel versus the United States, any activity that was like in furtherance of the Trump campaign activities and any activity by Lindsey Graham that was exhorting or extorting or threatening local lawmakers in Georgia, that's not subject to legitimate legislative activity protection.

So what the argument by special counsel Jack Smith was with respect to former Vice President Mike Pence was, the first argument is that he's not entitled to this protection at all. Pence is not a senator. Pence is not a member of Congress, not a member of the House of Representatives. And to the extent he has the ceremonial role, it's for that short period of time. I think special counsel Jack Smith wins on that alone. And then separately, Pence being used by Donald Trump to commit crimes, Pence being the recipient of death threats by Donald Trump, Pence being in the room where Donald Trump conspired to overthrow our democracy. Even if you had a member of the House of Representatives or a senator involved in that. That is not legitimate legislative activity regardless.

And so the new chief judge, Judge James Boesberg, also known, goes by the name Jeb Boesberg, looked at these facts and ultimately Chief Judge Boesberg said, look, for purposes of speech and debate immunity, there's a short period of time. You had the ceremonial role on January 6th. You count the electoral votes. Sure, for that period of time, you had the ceremonial roll on January 6th, you count the electoral votes, sure, for that period of time, you will get the immunity. And by the way, that makes no difference because the key thing here is that Pence observed all of these other acts by Donald Trump, both before and after January 6th, which he's now going to have to testify to the grand jury under oath about. So that's really big. And the Judge Boasberg said that period of time, you don't have to testify.

Everything else, testify. And then Pence had the ability to appeal this all the way up to the Supreme Court. He didn't even file an appeal to the D.C. Circuit. And he goes, all right, my hands are tied. I'm testifying before the criminal grand jury now. And so that will take place in short order. So very big news. You're going to have the former vice president of the United States now providing testimony that will be very harmful to the former president, Donald Trump, but will be very helpful for the truth, very helpful for democracy. Oh, and one other point I wanted to make about the arguments that special counsel Jack Smith

likely made to the judge as well, because Pence wrote books about it and has given press tours about it, one way to completely get around the speech and debate clause immunity here, as you now know, is statements to the press are not legitimate legislative activity. So Jack Smith can just basically say, hey, we're just going to ask him questions about what he said to the press. We want that to be under oath. So Pence is saying, I'm not putting up any more fights with Jack Smith. This was important that Jack Smith was not kind of psyched out by Pence and Pence's lawyers, because that's what they tried to do. They tried to basically scare away Jack Smith, scare away Jack Smith's team

into believing this was going to be a long, bloody legal battle. And Jack Smith was like, bring it on. I don't care. We'll take this all the way to the Supreme Court. You're going to lose based on the case law regardless. You're going to keep on losing and further disgrace yourself, or you're going to testify. Pence tapped out and was like, all right, I'm done. I'm going to testify before the grand jury. There's a statement from Pence's spokesperson just confirming this. It's David O'Malley who says, quote, Vice President Pence will not appeal the judge's ruling and will comply with the subpoena as required by law. Big news, folks, to report. Hit subscribe. We are on our way to 1.5 million subscribers here on the Midas Touch Network. We were the most watched news network of all coverage regarding Donald Trump's criminal arraignment. Let's keep

that up. Let's keep building this pro-democracy community. You can check us out at patreon.com slash MidasTouch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash MidasTouch if you want to help fund the growth of this independent media platform. No worries if you can't. And also make sure you subscribe to our audio podcast by going to wherever device you get your audio podcast. Just search Midas Touch Podcast. All right. Hit subscribe right now on YouTube.

It's free. Until next time, I'm Ben Micellis. Thank you so much. All right. Hit subscribe. Lock him up. Indictment season is upon us. Celebrate with the new indictment season t-shirt and v-neck exclusively at store.midastouch.com.