Jan. 6 panel looking into Trump’s pressure on Pence to reject election results

With two witnesses Thursday, the U.S. House panel intends to show how Donald Trump’s false claims of a fraudulent election left him grasping for alternative solutions.

The 1/6 committee is set to plunge into Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to salvage the 2020 election by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral count — powers Pence didn’t have — in the run-up to the U.S. Capitol riot.

With two witnesses Thursday, the House panel intends to show how Trump’s false claims of a fraudulent election left him grasping for alternatives as courts turned back dozens of lawsuits challenging the vote.

Trump latched onto conservative law professor John Eastman’s obscure plan and launched a public and private pressure campaign on Pence days before the vice president was to preside over the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.

A federal judge has said it is “more likely than not” Trump committed crimes in his attempt to stop the certification.

“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” the Jan. 6 panel said in a court filing against Eastman. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., committee co-chair, said in her opening statement last week: “What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn’t just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional.”

The committee will hear from Greg Jacob, the vice president’s counsel who fended off Eastman’s ideas for Pence to carry out the plan; and retired federal judge Michael Luttig, who called the plan from Eastman, his former law clerk, “incorrect at every turn.”

Thursday’s session is also expected to divulge new evidence about the danger Pence faced that day as the mob stormed the Capitol shouting “hang Mike Pence!” with a gallows on the Capitol grounds as the vice president fled with senators into hiding. Nine people died in the riot and its aftermath.

The session is expected to show how Trump’s pressure on Pence “directly contributed” to the attack on the Capitol, according to a committee aide who insisted on anonymity to discuss the upcoming hearing.