House Democrats asked Vice President Mike Pence to turn over a litany of documents by Oct. 15 as a part of their impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, USA Today reports.
The announcement comes after other reports suggest Pence has been attempting to distance himself from Trump and the inquiry, throwing a wrench into an already murky swamp of a scenario between Pence and Trump.
The Democrats issued a letter to Pence saying failure to comply with their request could be consider obstruction against the inquiry, which “may be used as an adverse inference against you and the president.”
The chairmen for House of Representatives committees that lead the investigation said that they are looking into the extent that Trump “jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere with our 2020 election and by withholding security assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression, as well as any efforts to cover up these matters.”
On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Trump used Pence to pressure Ukrainian President Zelenskiy to look into evidence of corruption and wrongdoing from former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, which lies at the center of the impeachment inquiry. According to The Post, Pence’s national security advisor monitored Trump’s call with Zelenskiy. Pence received a transcript of the call, according to CNN. But Pence — before this recent request from the House — and his team have slowly tried to distance themselves from Trump, according to The Washington Post.
In fact, according to The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins’ report on Pence, there’s been a growing distance between Trump and Pence.
“To many observers in Washington—myself included—the story was evidence that the two men were not entirely on the same page. Pence’s maneuvering yesterday may have temporarily deflated that narrative, but it also illuminated the fraught nature of his relationship with Trump,” Coppins wrote.
And this could be a big deal. Lawmakers have an appreciation for Pence, according to Coppins’ article. One senior Republican Senate staffer told him, “If it was just a matter of magically snapping their fingers … pretty much every Republican senator would switch out Pence for Trump. That’s been true since day one.”
Impeachment is still a long way away. But it doesn’t mean that Pence wouldn’t be a threat to Trump if impeachment took a serious turn.
“Of course, the ship is still a long way from sinking,” Coppins wrote. “Even if the House impeaches Trump, it remains unlikely that the Senate will vote to remove him from office. But many of the traits that make Pence valuable to Trump now could make him a threat if the dynamics change.”
He wrote, “For now, at least, both Trump and Pence seem to need each other for political survival. But theirs has always been a marriage of convenience—and the coming months will test the strength of that union.”