There are lots of thankless jobs in this world – junk hauler, trash collector, latrine cleaner – but none can top the task of being Mike Pence.
Imagine how hard it must be to stand mute behind Trump, rotely nodding like a bobblehead, pretending that each spewed idiocy is a pearl of wisdom – while dodging the boss’ sewage in the hopes of coming out clean.
Pence may well pine for the days when the vice presidency was a nothing job – in the words of FDR veep John Nance Garner, “a bucket of warm spit” – because he’s wedded to an amoral grifter who irrevocably soils everyone in his orbit. And as Trump careens toward impeachment, with even Fox News reporting, in its new poll, that 51 percent of registered voters already want him convicted and ousted (I kid you not), Pence is stuck trying to flee all taint from the Ukraine-Biden scandal. Good luck with that.
In the wake of the overwhelming evidence that the Trump regime leaned on Ukraine to dig up dirt of Joe Biden, thus violating the federal law that bars such collusion with foreign nations, Pence’s best defense is that he’s the epitome of dumb and dumber.
We’re supposed to believe he was oblivious about what Rudy Giuliani was doing, what Rudy’s newly-arrested goons were doing, what the Trump regime’s diplomats were texting, and what Trump himself was saying. As we all know, the congressionally-mandated military aid to Ukraine was put in limbo for months, to coax Ukraine into digging dirt for Trump’s ’20 campaign. A child could connect those dots. But, supposedly, Pence the seasoned politician – former congressman, former governor – saw and heard nothing. Despite the fact that one of Pence’s top advisers listened in on Trump’s smoking-gun call to Ukraine President Zelensky, and that Pence had access to the call’s transcript within hours. Either Pence didn’t read the transcript and missed Trump’s push for an illegal “favor,” or he read it and told himself it was fine, or he read it and willed himself to un-remember it.
Which brings us to Pence’s noteworthy exchange with the press yesterday in Iowa. He appears to have refined his dumb and dumber defense. An NBC News reporter asked a very specific question: “Were you aware, Mr. Vice President, that interest in investigating the Bidens was at least part of the reason for aid to Ukraine being held up? Were you ever aware?”
Pence: “I never discussed the issue of the Bidens with President Zelensky.”
Since Pence hadn’t answered the question, the reporter tried again: “But were you ever aware (of what was happening) within the administration?”
Pence: “Our contacts in my office with Ukraine were entirely focused on the broader issues of lack of European support to end corruption.”
Since Pence again had failed to answer the question, the reporter tried a third time: “But were you aware of (Trump administration) interest in the Bidens being investigated, and that being tied to aid to Ukraine being held up?”
Pence: “Let me be very clear. The issue of aid and Ukraine, from my experience, were in no way connected…”
The reporter tried and failed a fourth time: “But were you aware of others in the administration having those conversations?”
Pence had been playing dumb for weeks now, but this was a noteworthy addendum. By refusing to answer the question, he didn’t acknowledge or deny that he knew what was going on. He simply said that he personally, in his own office, didn’t participate in any arms-for-dirt extortion effort. He’s clearly seeking shelter from the burgeoning storm, hoping to insulate himself as best he can, purged of all sin.
Maybe he can weather the embarrassment of being lashed to Trump’s mast. There is precedent for that. Back in May 2017, he publicly insisted that the stable genius had fired FBI director James Comey only because the Justice Department had supposedly urged the firing. Pence said that on May 10. On May 11, Trump undercut Pence, declaring on TV that he’d fired Comey to lower the heat on the Russia probe: “Regardless of (Justice’s) recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.”
Trump repays loyalists by hanging them out to dry. It’s happening to Pence again. He’s trying to insulate himself from the impeachable scandal, but Trump trying to suck him into it – telling the press, “I think you should ask for Vice President Pence’s conversation (with Ukraine) because he had a couple of conversations also.”
He can’t escape Trump’s bunker. Three House committees have told Pence to fork over any documents that would clarify “any role you may have played” in the arms-for-dirt saga, which means that we might need to update Senator Howard Baker’s famous query during the ’73 Watergate hearings: What did Pence know, and when did he know it?
Or perhaps we should update the question posed by the National Lampoon’s Watergate parody album: What did Pence know, and when did he stop knowing it?
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By the way, Trump was not happy to learn this morning, via the Fox News poll, that 51 percent of registered voters already support his impeachment and removal. His very presidential reaction, via Twitter:
“Whoever their Pollster is, they suck.”