interesting, of course, the vice president has been negotiating, right, his team with the committee since last summer, right? so, this isn t new. b but, you know, this coming out now, you know, they do say mr. pence, in his view, these these criminal referrals that norm is referring to appear designed to hurt republican chances of winning control of congress in november. right? that that team pence is put out that they see the committee becoming partisan. is he playing politics here? or do you think he s made up his mind, already? there s so much politics going on here. i know that s shocking. uh, but because there are the word dance is one that norm used and i think that s a very important one. there is a lot of posturing happening. and there s a posturing happening on all sides and when it comes to mike pence and his world, there are multiple dynamics within that world, right? you have the former-vice president. what he may want to do when it
comes to his legal and historical obligation. and then, you have the reality of the fact that he is, you know, 60, 61 years old and wants a political future in the republican party that is still totally dominated by his former boss, donald trump. so, there is a lot of posturing going on right now within and even among pence staffers and pence confidants. and also, erin, among members of the committee. i mean, how many times did we hear in and around the january 6th anniversary last week, senior members of the committee falling all over themselves to say how much of a hero and a patriot and and and a constitutional maybe not scholar but somebody who was who was following the constitution on january 6th, 2021. that was not an accident. so, there is a lot going on there, and and the public, in order to try to influence what s
past this stage of the litigation the motion to dismiss stage. you know, the among the legal issues, there is the question of were these duties within the president s official-job description? or is inciting an insurrection outside of the president s job description? i mean, come on. attacking your own government is not part of the job description. there are questions about whether or not a conspiracy was formed. by as you heard, uh, the judge said well for at least for purposes of this stage, the the ex-president s words could be construed as executing an agreement. and then, there is the failure to act that is so important to the committee s, um, decision of whether or not to take a criminal referral that we were just talking about. right. those now-infamous 187 minutes. so, i think they are going to
make it through on the case against trump at this stage. so, dana, final question is why we believe the gop will shut down the committee if it regains control of the house in november? minority leader kevin mccarthy is now being very public about his intent to go even further, and to remove key democrats from important committees. here he is today. the democrats created a new thing where they are picking and choosing who can with on committee. never in the history have you had the majority tell the minority who could be on committee but this new standard, um, which these democrats have voted for. you look at, um, adam schiff. he should not be serving on intel when he has openly, knowingly now used a fake dossier, lied to the american public in the process. and um, doesn t doesn t have any ill will. he also said he would kick off ilhan omar and eric swalwell from their communities. is he right the democrats opened the door to this with marjorie taylor greene and others? he he
me back. i think the committee has been cautious about predicting who will and will not cooperate. but there is nothing partisan about a congressional committee making criminal referrals. it is a common practice and, erin, if the evidence indicates that crimes were committed, it s vitally important that the 1-6 committee send that evidence and its legal analysis to the justice department and we heard from the attorney general last week. he was care careful and he was measured that, um, he will not play any favorites, that he will do justice in this case. so, he s ready to receive. um, i think that it s mike pence who may be playing a little bit of politics here, getting a little bit of cold feet. but let s remember, we have seen this dance back and forth before. we need to see how it plays out. but the committee must make those referrals. and, dana, you know, it s