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Pence Bombshell Resurfaces Old Questions About Grassley and January 6
An ABC News bombshell report revealing then-Vice President Mike Pence had, at one point, decided to not preside over the January 6 joint congressional session to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election is once again bringing up questions about remarks U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had made one day before the event, which some interpreted as him announcing he, and not the Vice President, would be presiding over the proceedings. Grassley later denied the claim.
The ABC News report includes conversations Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team had in closed-door sessions with Pence, including the former vice president’s notes they obtained from the National Archives.
“According to sources, one of Pence’s notes obtained by Smith’s team shows that, days before Pence was set to preside over Congress certifying the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, he momentarily decided that he would skip the proceedings altogether, writing in the note that there were ‘too many questions’ and it would otherwise be ‘too hurtful to my friend.’ But he ultimately concluded he had a duty to show up,” ABC News reported.
The report added that their “sources said, with the pressure on Pence mounting, he concluded on Christmas Eve — just for a moment — that he would follow Trump’s suggestion and let someone else preside over the proceedings on Jan. 6.”
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“Speaking with Smith’s team, Pence insisted his loyalty to President Trump at the time never faltered — ‘My only higher loyalty was to God and the Constitution,’ sources described Pence as telling them.”
“‘Not feeling like I should attend electoral count,’ Pence wrote in his notes in late December. ‘Too many questions, too many doubts, too hurtful to my friend. Therefore I’m not going to participate in certification of election.'”
ABC’s report is prompting questions about U.S. Senator Grassley’s remarks on January 5, 2021, when he said he would be presiding over the Senate the following, fateful day.
Back in September, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake revisited that event, which in 2021 sparked rumors and speculation.
“Asked whether former president Donald Trump’s legal team had any discussions about Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) presiding over the certification of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, rather than Vice President Mike Pence, [Trump coup memo author John] Eastman declined to answer, citing attorney-client privilege with Trump,” The Post reported, referring to Eastman’s legal testimony in a disbarment proceeding. “The moment drew renewed attention to one of the bigger unanswered questions about Jan. 6: How extensive was the effort to get Pence to step aside?”
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“While Grassley has denied any outreach about whether he would preside on Jan. 6, an email obtained by the [U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack] shows that one of his staff members asked Pence’s office on Dec. 23, 2020, about such a scenario.”
“‘ … Is there any reason to believe that your boss will not preside over the electoral college vote count,’ Grassley aide James Rice wrote, as recounted in Jan. 6 committee transcripts, ‘leaving my boss in the spot as [president pro tem]?'”
“Pence aide Paul Teller responded that ‘it’s not a zero percent chance of that happening.'”
But The Post concluded, “the suggestion that this was a concerted effort to get rid of Pence remains unsubstantiated.”
In October of 2022, the Des Moines Register also looked that that event from January 5.
“As the counting of electoral votes neared, reporters asked Grassley how he planned to vote on election certification, the Iowa newspaper reported.
“’If the vice president isn’t there, and we don’t expect him to be there, I will be presiding over the Senate and obviously listening to the debate without saying anything,’ [Grassley] said on a call with agriculture reporters Jan. 5, 2021. ‘You’re asking me how I’m going to vote. I’m going to listen to that debate on what my colleagues have to say during that debate and decide how to cast my vote after considering the information before me.'”
The Register added, “Taylor Foy, a spokesperson for Grassley, quickly issued a clarification to the media the same day, saying Grassley was talking about possibly presiding over the Senate debate if Pence happened to step out. The House and Senate needed to meet separately to consider objections to the electoral count in individual states before convening a joint session of Congress.”
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Regardless of the Grassley issue, many have served up sharp criticism of Pence after learning he at one point had decided to not execute his constitutional responsibilities, even if he ultimately did perform his duty.
“A regular Profile in Courage,” presidential historian Michael Beschloss sarcastically declared.
“I myself would never want to upset a good friend who wishes to see me hung by an angry armed mob,” conservative attorney George Conway said mockingly.
“The most important takeaway from the ABC News story re: Pence hedging on whether he should preside over the counting of the Electoral College votes on January 6, is that the pressure campaign on Pence to unlawfully and unilaterally upend the election was not entirely ineffective,” observed professor of law Anthony Michael Kreis.
“Remember that Mike Pence, who didn’t want to carry out the Constitutional oath he took that ended with the words ‘So Help Me God’ shamelessly titled his book about the events ‘So Help Me God.’ The man’s always been a shameless fraud,” declared political scientist David Darmofal.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
