Now the story is that he didn’t want the opticals of his retinue retreating from the Capitol. Am I the only one who assumed he was afraid of a “Tessio from the Godfather” scenario?
No, you aren’t the only one and I still think that way. What would have happened if Pence wound up sleeping with the fishes we’ll never know.
Can you provide some detail? What car?
When the knuckle draggers took the Capitol, Pence was taken down to a loading dock where at least one of his motorcade cars waited. I don’t know the make of the car. Anyway, his guards wanted to whisk him away, but he said, “I’m not getting in that car”.
Somehow, I doubt he’s ever seen The Godfather. Mother wouldn’t permit it.
It’s worth mentioning that Pence’s chief of staff had reported to the Secret Service that he believed that Trump was going to turn on Pence for not overturning the election, and that there was the danger of actual physical harm to Pence.
Your link says he didn’t specify a specific threat. I would guess he was envisioning some riled up Trump supporter trying to shoot him (similar to the recent Kavanaugh guy).
No, Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes. It was Paulie who got shot in the car. “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”
Pence, of course, is more like Fredo.
Stranger
I don’t believe Pence would have been at risk of any physical harm had he gotten in the car. The real risk was the likelihood that doing so would have meant he would not return. Similarly, buses had already arrived to evacuate Congress members.
One wonders what would have happened if Pence and the rest of Congress had decided to evacuate instead of staying around to complete the task that the insurrection was intended to stop.
Exactly. I think he believed he would be taken somewhere else and not allowed to return.
This Washington Post article lays it out very well:
The above-referenced piece includes this quote from the book, I Alone Can Fix It, by Washington Post reporters Carol Loennig and Phil Rucker:
Around this time, Kellogg ran into Tony Ornato in the West Wing. Ornato, who oversaw Secret Service movements, told him that Pence’s detail was planning to move the vice president to Joint Base Andrews.
“You can’t do that, Tony,” Kellogg said. “Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.”
My understanding was if Pence left then they could not have done the count that day, which may have enabled Trump more opportunities to overthrow the election. Pence staying prevented that.
True. And the other opportunity it presented was to allow someone else to step in and act (Chuck Grassley is the senator most frequently named) in Pence’s place. Someone who would have rejected the certification and attempted to return the elector slates to the supposed “contested” states.
Which is where the false slates of electors come in.
What’s the axiom…“Never let a kidnapper take you to a second location?”
Especially if that “second location” is a Trump property:
Stranger
PENCE: Can you get me off the hook, Mark? For old times’ sake?
MARK MEADOWS: Can’t do it, Mikey.
I doubt he could tell.
Democracy is my number one political priority, and Pence defied the boss’s orders to adhere to it when it mattered. If Biden doesn’t give Pence the Presidential Medal of Freedom. it will be political malpractice.
If Pence refuses to go to the ceremony, no worries. It would be the kind of bad publicity, for Biden, that is really be good publicity.
“Political malpractice” isn’t a thing and the Presidential Medal of Freedom has a threshold above “doing your fucking job”.
Stranger
I can see the argument for giving Pence some sort of acknowledgment. There was a mob saying they wanted to hang him, and there were people in his own administration who wanted to prevent him from upholding the Constitution. The fact that he did his job in those circumstances is, in fact, noteworthy.