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Appeals Court Rejects Trump Effort to Block Pence Testimony

A federal appeals court on Wednesday night moved former Vice President Mike Pence closer to appearing before a grand jury investigating efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election, rejecting a bid by former President Donald Trump’s lawyers to block the testimony.

It was not immediately clear what day Pence might appear before the grand jury, which for months has been investigating the events preceding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert the election outcome. But Pence’s testimony, coming as he moves closer to entering the 2024 presidential race, would be a milestone moment in the investigation and would likely give prosecutors a key first-person account as they press forward with their inquiry.

The order from the three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was sealed and none of the parties are mentioned by name in online court records. But the appeal in the sealed case was filed just days after a lower-court judge had directed Pence to testify over objections from the Trump team.

A lawyer for Pence and a spokesperson for Trump did not immediately return emails seeking comment, and a spokesman for the Justice Department special counsel leading the investigation declined to comment.

Pence was subpoenaed to testify earlier this year, but lawyers for Trump objected, citing executive privilege concerns. A judge in March refused to block Trump’s appearance, though he did side with the former vice president’s constitutional claims that he could not be forced to answer questions about anything related to his role as presiding over the Senate’s certification of votes on Jan. 6.

“We’ll obey the law, we’ll tell the truth,” Pence said in an interview with CBS News’ Face the Nation that aired Sunday. “And the story that I’ve been telling the American people all across the country, the story that I wrote in the pages of my memoir, that’ll be the story I tell in that setting.”

Pence has spoken extensively about Trump’s pressure campaign urging him to reject Biden’s victory in the days leading up to Jan. 6, including in his book So Help Me God.

Pence, as vice president, had a ceremonial role overseeing Congress’ counting of the Electoral College vote, but did not have the power to affect the results, despite Trump’s contention otherwise.

Pence has said that Trump endangered his family and everyone else who was at the Capitol that day and history will hold him “accountable.”

“For four years, we had a close working relationship. It did not end well,” Pence wrote, summing up their time in the White House.

The special counsel leading the investigation, Jack Smith, has cast a broad net in interviews and has sought the testimony of a long list of former Trump aides, including ex-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former adviser Stephen Miller.

Smith is separately investigating Trump over the potential mishandling of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, as well as efforts to obstruct that probe.

It is not clear when either of the special counsel’s investigations will end or who, if anyone, will be charged.
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Montana Transgender Legislator Silenced After ‘Blood on Your Hands’ Comment

Montana statehouse Republicans on Wednesday silenced Democratic transgender legislator Zooey Zephyr from floor debates for breaking decorum after she said lawmakers who backed a ban on gender-affirming health care for minors would have “blood on their hands.”

Under the motion that passed 68-32, Zephyr will be allowed to vote but is barred from the House floor, anteroom or gallery for the remainder of the legislative session, scheduled to end on May 10.

The discord in Montana — which has garnered national attention amid an escalating culture war in the United States over issues such as transgender rights — has brewed since an April 18 debate over Senate Bill 99. The state measure seeks to ban transgender health care treatments for minors, including puberty blockers and hormones.

‘Tantamount to torture’

Zephyr, a first-term representative from Missoula, said in the debate that denying such care was “tantamount to torture,” and that a ban would lead to more suicides.

“If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there’s an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” Zephyr said.

In response, the Republican supermajority silenced her within the chamber until she apologized, prompting a large protest by Zephyr supporters at the statehouse on Monday.

When protesters in the gallery disrupted that session by chanting “Let her speak,” the House speaker ordered representatives to abandon the floor, but Zephyr stayed in place, pointing a microphone toward her supporters.

Seven demonstrators were arrested, and Republicans increased their attention on Zephyr, with the ultraconservative Montana Freedom Caucus on Monday urging she be punished.

Majority Leader Sue Vinton, who presented the motion, stressed the need for decorum so that the rights of all representatives were protected.

“Monday, this body witnessed one of its members participating in conduct that disrupted and disturbed the orderly proceedings,” Vinton said. “This member [Zephyr] did not accede to the order of the speaker.”

Zephyr remained defiant on Wednesday, telling the chamber that her “blood on your hands” comment was “not being hyperbolic.”

“When the speaker asks me to apologize on behalf of decorum, what he is really asking me to do is be silent when my community is facing bills that get us killed,” Zephyr said. “He is asking me to be complicit in this legislature’s eradication of our community. And I refuse to do so.”

The Democratic Party, the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ advocates criticized the censure as undemocratic.

500 bills

Republican legislators across the country have sought to ban certain health care for transgender youth. One tracker by a group of independent journalists says more than 500 bills have been introduced that they say would infringe on the rights of non-conforming gender people.

Such bills were once mostly limited to regulating changing rooms and women’s sports but now also include limiting health care access for transgender adults and in some cases seek to charge parents and doctors with child abuse if they provide treatment.

Opponents of such treatment are skeptical of the major medical associations that support gender-affirming care, raising concerns that minors are too easily allowed to make such life-changing decisions.

A similar break in decorum at a statehouse in Tennessee earlier this month led the Republican supermajority to expel two Democratic lawmakers who had protested in support of gun control, drawing national attention. They were promptly reappointed to their seats by their county legislatures and earned a trip to the White House.
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After Weeks of Hinting, Biden Announces Reelection Bid

After weeks of hinting he would run for reelection, U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday formally announced his candidacy for 2024 in a three-minute video that drew a stark picture of what he believes is at stake: the very soul of America. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington on the prospect of another election battle between Biden and his likely challenger, former President Donald Trump.
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