The ex-president Donald Trump claimed Friday that he never called Mike Pence “weak” after the then vice president said he would not sabotage the certification of the January 6th of 2021 of the electoral victory of Joe Biden by declaring himself and Trump the winner against the wishes of American voters.
“A guy got up and said he heard me call Mike Pence a wimp… I think they said at my desk. I don’t even know who these people are,” Trump said, referring to the accusation made by Nick Luna, his former “bodyguard,” in a House select committee affidavit on Jan. 6.
The excerpt from Luna’s statement was made public as part of the select committee’s presentation of Pence’s movements before and during the attack on the Capitolwhen a crowd calling for the then vice president to be hanged stormed the Capitol in hopes of preventing Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
Trump added: “I never called Mike Pence a coward.”
Luna was not the only former Trump White House official to say that Trump reacted negatively to Pence’s statement that he would not pursue a plan to unilaterally reject electoral votes from swing states won by Biden on the grounds that the election had been tainted by fraud.
Julie Radford, who served as Trump’s daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff, told the panel that Trump used a different word, “mari*a,” during a phone call between the two men just before that Pence come to the Capitol to preside over the joint session of Congress.
Because both testified before the panel under penalty of perjury, they could face prison time if they are found to have lied during their testimony, making it unlikely that Trump was telling the truth.
The former president devoted a significant part of his remarks in Nashville to attacking the investigation into the riots caused by his followers. He repeatedly told aides that the investigation overseen by the select committee was a “hoax” because the panel includes Democrats who previously investigated his campaign’s ties to the Russian government.
He complained that the select committee “refuses to play any of the tapes of people saying good things, things we want to hear” and cited the lack of “good things” being said about him as evidence that the investigation is ongoing. “rigged”.
Moments after he denied calling Pence a “pussy,” Trump said his former vice president had been “afraid of whatever he was afraid of” when he followed the advice of his own lawyers, who told him Trump’s plan it was illegal.
Trump downplayed the attack that took the lives of four people, including several police officers, on January 6.
“If this had been an insurrection on Capitol Hill, they would have known about it very soon,” said Trump, who praised the rioters who broke windows and attacked police officers as “strong people” and “great patriots.”
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