The U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the assault on the Capitol has described as «disappointing» former Vice President Mike Pence’s statements that Congress «has no right» to request his appearance for those incidents and therefore he will not appear.
The chairman of that committee, Democrat Bennie Thompson; and the vice-chairwoman, Republican Liz Cheney; have issued a joint statement in which they regret that Pence is «misrepresenting» the reason for the investigation in interviews he gave this week to promote his book ‘So help me God’ (‘So help me God’).
In that sense, they have expressed that although they have praised in previous occasions the attitude of Pence resisting the pressures of former President Donald Trump to stop the recount of the electoral votes and with it the confirmation of the triumph of Joe Biden, his statements now «are not accurate».
This week, the former ‘number two’ of the White House has been giving interviews to several US media to promote his new book, in which he openly criticizes and claims to feel annoyed with Donald Trump, whom he accuses of having ignored him during those turbulent days for the United States.
In a dialogue with CBS, Pence tried to delegitimize the authority of this committee by stating that all its members were from the Democratic Party, which is incorrect since two of them are Republicans, the aforementioned Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, not to mention that the leader of his party in the House, Kevin McCarthy, opposed the formation of a bipartisan commission.
Pence’s new statements contrast with those of a few months ago, when in August he stated that he did not close the door to testifying before this commission. «If we were ever issued a formal invitation, we would give it due consideration,» he said.
