The strained relationship between Pence and Trump leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection is evident in the special counsel’s latest filing

CNN
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Former Vice President Mike Pence’s role in certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Donald Trump and his repeated refusal to help the former president overturn the results came under scrutiny in special counsel Jack Smith’s detailed court filing on Wednesday.

In the 165-page document, Smith provides the most comprehensive account yet of the evidence in his 2020 election conspiracy case against Trump, Pence’s former boss. Within its pages, the document offers a detailed account of the hours before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the deterioration of the relationship between the two men that led throngs of Trump supporters to call for violence against Pence.

The role Trump’s vice president is playing in the federal prosecution against him has always been one of the most notable things about Smith’s case. But a summer Supreme Court ruling that gave Trump broad immunity for official actions but left prosecutors free to prosecute him for his unofficial moves also explains why those interactions form an important part of the historic new mandate.

While the Supreme Court did not completely exclude the allegations against Trump related to Pence from the case, the conservative majority said it was skeptical about whether Trump’s conduct toward Pence could be prosecuted. In response to allegations that Trump pressured Pence to block congressional certification, the Supreme Court ruled that it was a “presumptive immunized” official act, setting a high hurdle for prosecutors to clarify whether they wanted to keep this in their case.

In an attempt to clear that hurdle, Smith went into detail about the circumstances of various Trump-Pence conversations — where they took place, who else was present and what each party said — and argued that those interactions were beyond immunity, since they could serve no executive function.

According to the footnotes, at least some of this evidence came from Pence’s book, while other pieces came from his contemporary notes and likely other non-public sources, including perhaps his own grand jury testimony.

Smith’s team attempted in the filing to portray Pence’s communications with Trump outside of his official vice presidential duties, portraying a series of interactions between the two as conversations between “vice candidates” and friends in which Pence tried to comfort Trump and urged him to give up his to accept electoral defeat in the weeks after the election.

On November 7, when much of the media was calling the 2020 election for Biden, Pence tried to “encourage the defendant as a friend,” according to prosecutors. He told Trump to focus on how he revitalized the Republican Party and “breathed new life” into it.

At a luncheon on November 12, Pence told Trump that he didn’t have to concede, but he could “acknowledge that the process is over,” prosecutors said. And four days later, at another lunch, Pence tried again to get Trump to accept the results and suggested he run again in 2024, the filing said. However, Trump replied: “I don’t know, 2024 is so far away.”

And during a phone call on November 23, Trump reportedly told Pence that one of his private lawyers was skeptical about the election challenges.

During a private lunch on December 21, prosecutors said Pence “encouraged” Trump “not to view the election as a ‘loss – just a break.'” Later that day, during a private discussion in the Oval Office, Trump asked Pence what they should do Pence said: “After exhausting all legal processes in the courts and in Congress and still failing, (Trump) should ‘take a bow.’

The filing also details how Pence relayed to Trump the responses from the governors of Arizona and Georgia, who told him they “did not report evidence of voter fraud in their states” and “couldn’t take action to convene their states.” . Trump disrespected his vice president, prosecutors say.

After Pence told him he did not have the authority to decertify the election, Trump escalated his request, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors are citing contemporaneous notes from Pence that allegedly show that in the lead-up to January 6, Trump and his co-conspirators “plotted to manipulate the then-Vice President regarding his role in the election certification process.”

Trump personally asked one of his co-conspirators, John Eastman, to explain to Pence why he should reject the official Electoral College votes on January 6th. Pence took notes during that meeting, Smith says, reportedly reminiscent of Trump saying, “If there’s fraud, the rules get changed” and “The whole thing is in the representative’s hands.”

“Whatever you want them to do with you – you can be brave,” Pence’s notes reportedly read.

While Trump began pressuring Pence “directly and repeatedly,” his co-conspirators worked to orchestrate the pressure campaign behind the scenes, Smith says.

On Jan. 1, Trump called Pence to berate him for filing a brief opposing a lawsuit by Trump and his allies that sought to force Pence to help Trump get elected, prosecutors say. On the call, Trump told Pence that “hundreds of thousands” of people “are going to hate your guts” and “people are going to think you’re stupid,” and also called Pence “too honest,” according to the filing.

On January 5, 2021, according to the documents, Trump met with Pence again to allegedly pressure him not to certify the Electoral College votes. At that meeting, Trump threatened to publicly criticize Pence, Smith wrote, citing Pence’s book.

Smith says that Pence told someone identified only as “P8” in the filing about the comment and that “P8” was so worried about the prospect that he alerted Pence’s intelligence division.

According to prosecutors, Trump tried to pressure Pence again on the morning of Jan. 6, just before he drove to his speech at the Ellipse.

But Pence refused again and Trump “was outraged,” the filing said.

That’s when Trump “enacted the final plan to further his conspiracies: If Pence wouldn’t do what he asked, (Trump) would have to find another way to prevent Biden from being recognized as president,” the filing says .

“So on January 6, (Trump) sent a mob of angry supporters to the Capitol that the defendant had summoned to the city and flooded with false claims of result-determining voter fraud to persuade Pence not to certify the legitimate electoral votes and.” the “To hinder certification,” the filing states.

Prosecutors said Trump also displayed his “desperate behavior as a candidate, not as president” as rioters stormed the Capitol and forced Pence to be moved to a secure location.

An unnamed White House staffer, according to the documents, ran to Trump when he received a call that Pence had been taken to a safe location “in the hope that (Trump) would take action to ensure Pence’s safety.” .

However, according to prosecutors, Trump looked at the aide and simply replied, “So what?”

As the riots unfolded at the Capitol, Trump personally posted on Twitter that Pence “did not have the courage” to overturn the election results, according to prosecutors.

At the time he posted the tweet, according to prosecutors, Trump knew his request to Pence to block the Electoral College votes was illegal, knew that his supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., were aware of his lies during his speech at the Ellipse had believed that the election had been stolen and knew that these supporters had now broken into the Capitol.

“At that time, at 2:24 p.m., defendant posted the tweet attacking Pence for refusing defendant’s requests to join the conspiracy and contribute to the overthrow – solely by following news in real time and knowing that rioters had breached the Capitol, the results of the election,” Smith wrote.

The tweet “communicated to his angry followers that Pence had failed him – and them -,” Smith wrote, adding that it was “not a message sent to address a matter of public interest and alleviate unrest ; It was the message of an angry candidate who realized he would lose power.”

A rioter at the Capitol used a megaphone to read the post, the filing said. A minute after the tweet was posted, Smith wrote, the Secret Service was forced to evacuate Pence to a secure location in the Capitol.

Some of those in the Capitol later began chanting: “Hang Mike Pence!”, “Where’s Pence?” Take him out!” and “Traitor Pence!”

CNN’s Katelyn Polantz, John Fritze, Devan Cole and Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.