The former Vice President talking about trumps indictment now. January 6th was a tragedy. Ive spoken and written about it extensively. I have nothing to hide. By gods grace i believe we did our duty that day. Fulfilled the oath that id taken to the constitution and to the American People. The constitution is quite clear about the role of the Vice President in the counting of electoral votes. It essentially says the Vice President presides over a Joint Session Of Congress where the electoral votes that are certified by the states shall be opened and shall be counted. And irrespective of the indictment i want the American People to know that i had no right to overturn the election. And that on that day President Trump asked me to put him over the constitution but i chose the constitution. And i always will. And i really do believe that anyone who puts themself over the constitution should never be president of the United States. And anyone who asks themselves to put themselves over the constitution should never be president of the United States again. Ive been very forthright about this issue and ill continue to be. Now, with regard to the substance of the indictment, ive been very clear. Id hoped it wouldnt come to this. I had hoped that this issue and the judgment of the president s actions that day would be left to the American People. But now its been brought in a criminal indictment. And i cant assess whether or not the government has the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what they assert in the indictment. And the president s entitled to a presumption of innocence. But for my part i want people to know that i had no right to overturn the election and that what the president maintained that day and frankly has said over and over again over the last 2 1 2 years is completely false and its contrary to what our constitution and the laws of this country provide. You know, im a student of american history. And the first time i heard in early december somebody suggest that as Vice President i might be able to decide which votes to reject and which to accept, i knew that it was false. Our founders had just won a war against a king, and the last thing they would have done was vest unilateral authority in any one person to decide who would be the next president. I dismissed it out of hand. Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear. And while i made my case to him with what i understood my oath to the constitution to require, the president ultimate ly, ultimately, you know, continued to demand that i choose him over the constitution. So in in moment airrespective o how this case plays out i want the American People to know that i believe with all my heart by gods grace i did my duty that day. And as i stand for the republican nomination for president i want them to know, whatever it means to me, ill always stand on the constitution of the United States of america. Look, our country is more important than any one man. Our constitution is more important than any one mans career. And thats true of me and thats true of the president former president of the United States. Were going to stand on the facts and were going to stand by what happened that day, the stand that we took and trust ourselves to the judgment of Republican Voters and ultimately the American People. Sir, the abortion ban still in legal limbo. What are your thoughts sorry, i couldnt quite hear you. The state near total abortion ban is still in legal limbo. What are your thoughts regarding this issue . Well, im pro life. I dont apologize for it. And i couldnt be more grateful to the youre listening there to former Vice President mike pence. Of course his actions on january 6th and what he chose not to do very much at the heart of this indictment last night of former president donald trump. Pence, by the way, there in indianapolis talking about the economy, but he was asked about the indictment, specifically about a conversation that he had with President Trump and also whether the former president should be indicted. Very interesting because previously in this case when it comes to the January 6th Case of the Special Counsel is investigating he had said very recently that he thought the conduct was reckless but not criminal. Again, reiterating here that he feels that former President Trump put himself above the constitution and that that is disqualifying for a candidate for president. So hes saying here that the 45th President , donald trump, should be disqualified from running for president. But he also said that hed hoped it wouldnt come to this, that he wanted this left to the American People. Obviously to determine there as they vote ahead in the election. Of course pence a rival of donald trump in that election although he is polling significantly, significantly behind the former president. Trump meanwhile is scheduled to be in Court Tomorrow after federal prosecutors charged him with four separate counts in this indictment, all related to his attempt to hold on to power after the 2020 election. Its a 45page indictment that says trump, quote, enlisted coconspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts. It repeatedly references six unindicted coconspirators. Cnn has been able to identify five of those six. They are former Trump Lawyers rudy giuliani, john eastman, and sidney powell. Also former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and protrump lawyer kenneth cheseboro. Cnns Katelyn Polantz is outside of the Federal Court. We have our evan perez here in studio with us. Evan, to you first. Lets talk about these charges that trump is facing and then well kind of go wack to something that pence says. But take us through these charges. We know theetz four charges, which are the ones that frankly match what he was warned about in his Target Letter, and really what prosecutors do in this 45page document is they lay out that the former president has every right to challenge the election results, to go to court and challenge those results and to even lie about it. What he does here, according to prosecutors, is he engages with these coconspirators in this conspiracy, this series of conspiracies. One of them was to defraud the United States on the ability for the Electoral System to count these votes. The conspiracy to impede the ceremonial function of congress to certify the vote. And then of course to the conspiracy to deny the right of americans to have their votes be counted, their lawful votes be counted. And so thats what prosecutors are charging him here for. And they lay out all of the different ways in support of this. One of the things that they point to is of course interfering with the Vice President s ceremonial responsibility on january 6th, which is to certify the election. And they go into a conversation that happens on January 1st Of 2021 and ty describe a conversation between the former president and then Vice President pence at the time, and they say, you know, that vice Prident Pence was refusing to in a lawsuit that ulhave helped try to delay some of this. Pence responded that he thought that there was no constitutional basis for suchutrity and that it was improper. In response the former president tells the Vice President ure too honest. And within hours of that conversation the former president reminded his supporters to meet in washington before the certification proceeding, again, setting in motion the events that happened on january 6th, telling them of course that this was the stop the steal effort. That conversation is what pence was just asked about there by a reporter in his indianapolis event. And its interesting because look, we know that pence is looking at this through a political lens. Sure. Were in the middle and hes running and trumps running. But theres also the legal lens. And youre starting to see i think, you know, pence is a smart guy and hes starting to see how perhaps these things are you know, he cant run away from the legal aspect of this. He said he cant assess whether the Special Counsel has the evidence to back up the indictment but he seemed to get a little closer than hed gotten before. Before he said the conduct was reckless, not criminal. Now hes talking about he talked about the constitution before. Hes also mentioning the law. Right. Exactly. And i think look, you can see the struggle of the former Vice President and youve seen it over the last few months, right . Where hes been struggling to decide what to do. Whether he was going to how far to fight the effort to go testify. He has done all of the things to try to make sure that hes looked hes not exactly helping the Justice Department against donald trump but also to make it clear that what trump did was not lawful. And the words he used in that very interesting extended sound bite there was he said that what the former president was doing was not in concurrence with the constitution and the law. And those words, right . Is exactly what the Justice Department and what jack smith is accusing trump of. Theyre saying that you broke the law by going beyond just lying about the fraud and going to court. Theyre saying you went beyond that. And those are exactly the words that mike pence seems to finally be comfortable saying. Look, he probably is going to be a trial witness because of exactly the things he just said. Its tough when you want to hew back to that traditional republican sense of law and order to not make the easy cognitive leap between someone broke the law and they should be prosecuted. Hes still trying to thread that needle. This should not be that difficult a thing, certainly for constitutional conservatives, to do. Yeah. We hear him doing some rhetorical gymnastics there as he does. I want to bring in katelyn here. Katelyn, what are we going to be expecting to see tomorrow when trump makes his First Court Appearance in this case . Well, brianna, whenever you are scharnlgd with a crime in any court, you are arrested on the charges and informed of them officially in the court system. So donald trump, hes going to be doing that tomorrow for the first time or im sorry, for the third time after his arrest and initial appearances in a new york case and in the florida Federal Court. We are going to be expecting him to be here in person, in Federal Court in d. C. , to have his initial appearance. He very well may have the opportunity tomorrow to enter his initial pleading of not guilty, a pleading we expect him to stick with to get this to trial. We do not expect him to plead guilty. He is not that type of defendant in this at all. And so when this starts tomorrow, it brings donald trump into this court system, into this courthouse just a couple xw blocks away from the capitol. It puts him before a Magistrate Judge, a judge thats doing this initial proceeding, and then it essentially kicks him off into the process that gets him toward trial and will give him over then to the Federal District judge whos going to be overseeing his case, tanya chutkan. And so one of the things here is that while this case brings together an unwieldy part of what has been investigated here, there are so many different legs to this investigation, there are so many things that happened after 2020, it actually may be a fairly streamlined case. So were going to be watching for how quickly the judges respond, both the Magistrate Judge and the Federal District judge on setting deadlines after this. There are no classified documents in this case like there are in florida. And donald trump at this time, hes the only defendant. And so we are going to see a very focused hearing, perhaps a very short hearing tomorrow for donald trump to appear in court for the first time in washington, d. C. And it will get moving on that u. S. V. Trump case. Brianna . All right. Well be watching for that. Katelyn polantz live at the courthouse. Thank you so much. And jim, this as the former president , as this case makes its way towards that judge, tanya chutkan, i know youre looking into more about who she is. Yeah, lets take a look at what we know about judge chutkan. Shes going to preside over trumps criminal case after she is after he is arraigned. She is of course, like all judges in cases like this, randomly assigned by the courts. Her name, tanya chutkan, is a federal judge in washington. Shes presided over many criminal cases including many involving january 6th rioters. So whats her background . She was appointed by president obama back in 2014, confirmed by the senate 950. Of course that was democratic and republican votes. More than a decade prior as a public defender. As of last month she has presided over dozens of criminal cases for january 6th defendants including more than 30 of them, in those cases she handed down in some cases harsher sentences than what prosecutors recommended, at least nine times matched the recommendation from prosecutors 14 times. Here is one example of those cases. It involves robert palmer. He admitted to attacking Police Officers with a fire extinguisher, a plank and a pole. In December 2021 judge chutkan sentenced him to more than five years behind bars. The judge, we should note as well, has referenced donald trump in several cases including in one of them saying to a rioter, quote, that he did not go to the United States capitol out of love for our country, he went for one man. That one man being donald trump. Two years ago she also rejected trumps Executive Privilege claims to withhold some white house records from january 6th. 700 pages of white house records, in fact. Writing, you may remember this quote, president s are not kings and plaintiff is not president. Lets speak more about the case Going Forward with former federal prosecutor katie cherkasky. Katie, good to have you on today. First i wonder when you look at this Special Counsels indictment here, based in large part on lies that the Special Counsel says in the indictment that the president spread knowingly, knowing that they were lies leading to events on january 6th, attempts to overturn the election, is there something missing in the indictment that you think should have been there that is not there . Well, i think a lot of people are probably surprised that there was not a charge directly related to the insurrection and to the inciting of violence on that day. But i think big picture here, we would really be remiss to not talk about the jurisdiction of this case from a criminal prosecutorial standpoint. So theres been a lot of discussion about the facts, and i think that donald trump obviously has some defenses that hes going to raise, First Amendmentwise, attorneyclient privilegewise. But ultimately, this case is unprecedented in terms of the constitutionality of it. And i think that is something that is really going to be potentially a showstopper. So while his conduct may be very well condemnable, the idea of a criminal prosecution here i think is very tenuous. Why do you think the Special Counsel and granted, you have not seen the evidence. You werent sitting there in front of the grand jury. But why would a Special Counsel not take the step of that Additional Charge . Would it be simply a judgment, im taking the path where i have the best evidence . Sure. Of course its based on the evidence. And here i think any sort of charge relating to an inkriemt of a riot or violence of any sort was very, very weak on the evidence that was presented because there was ambiguity in a lot of the language that donald trump used to his supporters telling them at times to go in peace. When youre talking about inciting violence under the Supreme Court precedent it really requires imminent incitement of lawless activity. And it cannot be couched in any sort of vague or ambiguous terms. So i believe jack smith saw that that was a weak charge even based upon the evidence that we have seen. And of course there may be other evidence we do not have. But ultimately that charge does not appear in the indictment at this point. We already know that trumps attorneys are going to be taking in part a First Amendment defense here, saying its a Freedom Of Speech issue here. For those of us like myself who are not lawyers, in laymans terms where does the you cant shout fire in a crowded Movie Theater