McClintock: Pence Right, but January 6 Committee ‘Show Trial’ Is Wrong

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) told C-SPAN Thursday morning that former Vice President Mike Pence was right to resist calls to reject the results of the 2020 election, but that the January 6 Committee was the wrong forum to explore the issue.

McClintock was speaking hours ahead of the third public hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which was expected to focus on Pence’s role and Trump’s efforts to pressure him.

President Donald Trump had called on Pence at a rally in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021 to reject the Electoral College results from several states where results were disputed, sending the vote back to state legislatures for new consideration.

While the vast majority of attendees at Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally were peaceful, a small group began rioting at the Capitol before Trump had finished speaking at the rally a mile away. The January 6 Committee is probing the “insurrection.”

McClintock said that there were serious concerns about the Capitol riot, which he called an attempt to stop the democratic process. However, he said that these could not be addressed by the “Soviet-style show trial that’s going on right now.”

He noted that the January 6 Committee, which began its first public hearings last week, was entirely appointed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) after rejecting Republican nominees to serve on the committee, for the first time in history.

Asked whether Vice President Pence had been right to reject the effort by Trump and his supporters to urge him not to certify the result of the 2020 presidential election, McClintock said that Pence had acted responsibly and within the Constitution.

The idea that Congress could simply take over the adjudication of a presidential election after an Electoral College majority was “extremely dangerous” and “nonsensical,” McClintock argued, saying it could be used to cancel any election result.

Pence has been blamed by Trump allies, such as former economic adviser Peter Navarro, for standing in the way of what they argue was a legally valid process to revisit the results in states where voting laws had been unconstitutionally changed.

Last year, when Pence was asked who allegedly told him to certify the results of the 2020 vote, and not to follow through with an alleged plan to overturn the result, Pence replied bluntly: “James Madison,” the architect of much of the Constitution.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.