Former Vice President Mike Pence's refusal to single-handedly reject electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, as former President Donald Trump pressured him to do, will be the subject of the next House hearing investigating the Capitol attack.
RELATED: January 6 hearing includes testimony from Ivanka Trump, Bill Barr
Trump's lawyer, John Eastman, drafted the plan for Pence to reject votes from seven states President Joe Biden won, which could have thrown the 2020 election to Trump. But legal experts including a prominent retired conservative judge, Michael Luttig, whom Eastman clerked for, said there was no legal justification for the plan.
As the riot erupted at the Capitol, witnesses told the committee Trump approved of the mob chanting "Hang Mike Pence" while ransacking the Capitol. Trump denied it.
"What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn't just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional," said the committee vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. "Witnesses in these hearings will explain how the former Vice President and his staff informed President Trump over and over again that what he was pressuring Mike Pence to do was illegal."
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