What Did Mike Pence Know and When Did He Know It?

Mike Pence has had his name come up a few times during the ongoing Russia investigations. Fortunately, his boss could be counted on to provide a distraction a day so that Pence has never come under any concentrated focus. Since the election, people have more or less forgotten that he was almost as big a liar as Trump. The Vice-Presidential Debate was a clinic on how to tell any lie in the moment, even though it can and will be fact checked within hours.

Within hours of the first version released about how James Comey was fired as the Director of the FBI. Pence went to Capitol Hill and gave statement after statement about how Trump reached the decision after receiving a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Now that those statements have been rendered false when Donald Trump revealed in an interview his intention all along to fire Comey and that the memo came at his request. It would be easy to say that Pence himself was misled and he was just repeating what Trump told him. To do that however, you’d have to forget that Pence was in the room along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions while Trump implemented his plan.

Photo: spokesman.com

That meeting was troubling in and of itself because it included Sessions who had allegedly recused himself from all matters involving the Russian connections to the Trump campaign. Trump has acknowledged it was Russia on his mind when deciding to fire Comey. In a related matter, the Justice Department is currently not responding to questions about whether Sessions is involved in the investigation of Paul Manafort who was the Trump Campaign chair. Back to Pence.

There appears to be a coordinated effort to keep Pence above the fray, despite his constant wallowing in the dirt. Everybody keeps repeating the hard to reconcile version that Mike Flynn lied to Pence which was the reason he got fired. Pence was the Chairman of the Trump Transition Team. He was responsible for the vetting of Cabinet nominees and Presidential appointments like Flynn. It was to Pence that Elijah Cummings wrote on November 18, 2016 questioning him about published reports of Flynn’s troubling involvement with Turkey. It was Pence that apparently didn’t get the required new clearance for Flynn to become National Security Advisor. It is Pence who hopes to still be standing as collusion and corruption takes down all around him.

Photo: chicagotribune.com

If there was only Russian interference into the Presidential Election without participation of the Trump Campaign. Trump could still be removed based on Obstruction of Justice or simply diminished mental capacity as he seems to be unraveling before our eyes. In that case, rules of succession would lead us to Pence. If the Campaign was complicit; I submit the result cannot stand and the only remedy is a new election.

This Republican Congress has time after time put their Party above the needs of the Country and looked away from all of Trump’s misdeeds. It might even be their preference to end up with a President Pence which would enhance the chances of implementing their agenda. Given the opportunity, this Congress would prefer a transition to Pence no matter what Trump may ultimately be guilty of. They will continue the troubling pattern of holding Pence up as the untainted one when in truth he’s covered with slime. It is important for us to not let Pence slide while those around him are drowning in quicksand. It all starts with the question. What did Pence know and when did he know it.

Featured Photo: publicseminar.com