ex-president it all but ensures that special counsel jack smith will hear from the key witness who none of the other investigations into the trump cou plot not the fulton county d.a. has ever heard from under oath we re, of course, talking about mike pence a ruling handed down wednesday night by a federal appeals court rejects an emergency request by trump to block mike pence s testimony. new york times reports this, quote, the 11th hour ruling by the u.s. court of appeals for the district of colombia paves the way for mr. pence to appear before the federal grand jury as early as this week the ex-president has a few legal options left including an appeal to the supreme court but as nbc news reports, quote, in previous instances, where appeals sent senior aides must testify, his legal team has opted no the to fight the decision further and those witnesses have quickly appeared before the grand jury and trump s argument that executive privilege prevents pence or any of his ai
That informs his rhetoric at the ellipse on january 6 if he is aware there are people there angry at mike pence and he continues to ratchet up expectations s that pence has authority to take action, that informs the intent he is watching this mop b that knows are armed, they are angry the election he is launching them at the joint section which seems to be direct evidence of intent to disrupt that joint session. very, very directly relevant to jack smith s core question of the president s intent his state of mind in the obstructing of an official proceeding yeah. he has to prove, if he is going to bring a case, that the president corruptly, with specific intent, took action to obstruct, interfere or impede the joint session. he has to purposely do something that he hopes will disrupt that session. that s why his intent it s no