JD Vance Shows His True Colors

When Senator J.D. Vance was asked during Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate if former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he refused to answer.

Vance doubled down suggesting the presidential transition was peaceful.

Peaceful?

Vance has to know that Trump incited that day’s violent attack, urging his followers to go to the Capitol and telling them, “[I]f you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

It was anything but a peaceful transfer of power.

That Trump-inspired Capitol attack injured 140 police officers and threatened the life of his own Vice President. For hours, Trump did nothing to stop the violence, reportedly just sitting in the White House and watching it unfold on TV.

Constitutional scholar Matthew Seligman points out in The New York Times, that Vance has said repeatedly “that if he had been Vice President on Jan. 6, 2021, he would have intervened in the electoral count in favor of President Trump.”

Let’s be clear.

A Vice President has no constitutional authority to do anything regarding the Electoral College, other than open the envelopes and take out the names of the electors sent by each state. That’s it. No intervening allowed.

Yet Vance has said he would have “asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors,” and “would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we need to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.”

In short, Vance has said he would have been an active participant in Trump’s illegal presidential coup.

Vance saw how Trump turned on Mike Pence, so he knows the consequences of choosing the Constitution and the law over blind loyalty to Trump. If he needs a refresher, he should read the bombshell filing by Special Counsel Jack Smith made public on Wednesday.

The 165-page filing was made by Smith in the criminal case on Trump’s election interference activities to show that, under the Supreme Court’s recent presidential immunity decision, Trump is not immune from prosecution because the case involves Trump’s activities as a candidate, not official acts as President.

Smith’s filing also makes the case that even if Trump had presumptive immunity, the presumption is overridden by the facts of the case.

The filing shows that Trump was told by Pence and others that the claims of election fraud had no basis in fact. The filing alleges that at one point Trump was heard telling family members, “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

When Pence refused to submit to Trump’s demands that he disrupt the certification process and thereby violate his obligations under the Constitution, Trump threw him to the mob, tweeting: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” It didn’t take long for the mob to start chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”

According to the Smith filing, when Trump was told that Pence was in danger, he responded, “So what?”

Vance has indicated he, unlike Pence, would have done Trump’s bidding, choosing loyalty to Trump over his Constitutional responsibilities.

The Supreme Court conservative majority – except for Justice Amy Coney Barrett – did everything they could in their immunity decision to avoid facing the actual facts in the Trump case about what happened. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion, “In a case like this one, focusing on ‘transient results’ may have profound consequences for the separation of powers and for the future of our Republic. Our perspective must be more farsighted.”

That sounds eerily similar to Vance’s dodge on Tuesday night. When asked whether he believed Trump had lost in 2020, Vance responded that he was “focused on the future.”

As Governor Tim Walz pointed out, “That is a damning non-answer.” 

(On Thursday, however, The Good Liars posted a video from 2022 showing Vance on camera saying “Yes. Yep.” when asked if Trump won the 2020 election.)

But if the case reaches the Supreme Court again – and it will if Trump loses the election – the majority of Justices will no longer be able to avoid the facts of Trump’s attempted coup. They will have to decide whether Trump’s actions were campaign activities for which he can be prosecuted or the exercise of presidential powers, which are entitled to immunity.

Special Counsel Smith’s filing presents a powerful case that Trump was engaged in campaign activities and is not entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution.

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