Pence, Other Republicans React to Trump Being Referred for Criminal Prosecution

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Monday that he hoped the Department of Justice would not bring charges against Donald Trump, calling the former president’s conduct “reckless” but not criminal.

Pence, who is weighing a 2024 Republican presidential bid that would pit him against his former boss, has treaded carefully when discussing the attack on the U.S. Capitol, during which a mob of Trump supporters chanting “hang Mike Pence” came within 40 feet of him.

Speaking to Fox News on Monday morning, ahead of criminal referrals announced by the House committee investigating the attack, Pence downplayed Mr. Trump’s actions.

“I don’t know that it’s criminal to take bad advice from lawyers,” Pence said, repeating an argument he made three weeks earlier at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit.

Later Monday, the House committee accused Trump of inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress and one more federal crime as it referred him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.

A Justice Department decision to indict a former president, Pence said, would be “terribly divisive” at a time when “the American people want to see us heal.”

Congressional Republicans largely ignored the Jan. 6 committee’s meeting as it played out Monday, and many instead attempted to focus attention on the potential expiration of Title 42, a measure that Trump invoked during the pandemic to expel migrants and block them from seeking asylum.

The handful of GOP members who did acknowledge the committee’s criminal referrals, including far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, dismissed them outright.

Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York, a Trump ally who was not in office at the time of the Jan. 6 attack, accused the committee of staging a “Soviet-style show trial.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the third-ranking House Republican, said in a statement that the incoming Republican House majority would “hold House Democrats accountable for their illegitimate abuse of power.”

The House committee also drew the fire of Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, both of whom were among four Republicans referred to the House Ethics Committee for defying subpoenas to cooperate with the Jan. 6 investigation.

Biggs said on Twitter that he looked forward to “setting the record straight” in the next Congress, while Jay Ostrich, a spokesperson for Perry, dismissed the Jan. 6 committee’s referrals as “more games.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.