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WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Mike Pence confirmed that he called former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey at Donald Trump’s request to discuss the 2020 election results, but insisted that Trump never pressured him to find evidence to back up his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.
“I did check in, with not only Gov. Ducey, but other governors and states that were going through the legal process of reviewing their election results,” Pence said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “But there was no pressure involved. I was calling to get an update. I passed along that information to the president. It was no more, no less, than that.”
Trump lost Arizona to now-President Joe Biden by less than 11,000 votes. Asked if he had been pressured by Trump to push Ducey to change the election results in Arizona, Pence said he had not.
“No, I don’t remember any pressure,” Pence said.
“Look, the president and I, things came to a head at the end,” he said, referring to Trump’s demands that he overturn the election results in his capacity as vice president while overseeing Congress’ certification of electoral votes.
“I did my duty under the Constitution that day in presiding over a joint session of Congress in the aftermath of the mayhem and the rioting,” Pence said. “But in the days of November and December, this was an orderly process. You’ll remember there were more than 60 lawsuits underway, states were engaging in appropriate reviews and that these contacts were no more than that.”
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The Washington Post reported Saturday that Trump, in a phone call in late 2020, tried to pressure Ducey to overturn the state’s presidential election results, arguing that if enough fraudulent votes could be found, it would overcome his narrow loss in Arizona.
Trump also repeatedly asked Pence to call Ducey and prod him to find the evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims of fraud, the Post reported. Pence called Ducey several times to discuss the election, the paper said, though he did not follow Trump’s directions to pressure the governor.
In his CBS interview, Pence insisted that Trump never pressured him to try to influence any state governor.
“This was about information gathering, finding out what was going on,” he said.
Pence testified in April for several hours before a federal grand jury investigating Trump and his role in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to protest Congress’ formal approval of Biden’s victory over Trump.
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Pence’s testimony came several hours after a federal appeals court rejected a bid by Trump’s lawyers to block Pence’s appearance.
In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has signaled that Trump could be indicted this summer over his attempts to overturn the election results in that state.
In the weeks after the election, Trump’s campaign recruited Republican electors as alternates to the official electors in Georgia and other states Biden won. Trump also personally called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, to plead with him to “find” the votes he needed to win the state.
Trump already is facing criminal charges in Florida and New York. In June, a federal grand jury in Florida indicted him on 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. A state grand jury in New York indicted him in April on 34 counts of falsifying business records in an attempt to cover up an extramarital affair. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on Twitter @mcollinsNEWS.
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