Schiff: Pence Won’t Testify Before January 6 Committee Because ‘He Doesn’t Want to Alienate the Trump Base’

Monday on MSNBC’s “All In,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) claimed former Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to testify for the soon-to-be-defunct January 6 Committee because he was going to run for president and did not want to “alienate” the so-called Trump base.

“Why do you think he’s wrong when he says Congress has no right to his testimony?” MSNBC host Chris Hayes said.

“Because it’s — you know, at its base, the most basic, it’s not about what Congress has a right to — indeed, we do have a right to his testimony,” Schiff replied. “It’s what is his responsibility to the public and to the country. Former presidents have come and testified before Congress, certainly, a former vice president can.”

“But as you say, no, it’s more important for him to sell his book,” he continued. “It’s really basically his following the John Bolton model. I can’t come in to testify before Congress for some fictitious reason, but I can put it all in a book and make money from it. You know, look, we have to view everything Mike Pence says and does right now through the prism of two things, he wants to run for president. He doesn’t want to alienate the Trump base any more than he has to. And this is his way of walking that line.

But it really is a disservice to the country. And for him to parade this as some kind of a sanctimonious decision that they have no right to my testimony doesn’t, of course, answer the question, does he have a responsibility to the country? Certainly, if he wanted to testify, he could. And he is withholding that from the American people.

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