Long Post: Pence has been pretty quiet since the Jan 6th tapes were released. Which isn’t all that surprising.

On Dec. 22, 2020, Pence spoke at a Turning Point USA event in West Palm Beach where he told the crowd that “as our election contest continues, I’ll make you a promise. We’re going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted.

Two days prior to Jan 6th, during an impassioned speech on Monday, Jan. 4, Pence reassured the enthusiastic crowd that he stands “with President Donald Trump.”

Pence continued, telling the cheering crowd, “We’ve all got out doubts about the last election. I want to assure you, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about voting irregularities. And I promise you, come this Wednesday, we’ll have our day in Congress. We’ll hear the objections. We’ll hear the evidence.”

But Pence then stayed quiet as Trump claimed that “The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors”. Pence stayed silent until 12:53 on Jan 6th when Trump was nearly finished giving his Capitol speech.

At 12:53 on Jan 6th – the day of certification – Pence’s office released a letter to members of Congress stating his position on electoral certification for the first time publicly, saying he did not believe he had Constitutional authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted.

Pence’s position that he lacked unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted was not an overtly unreasonable position. But Pence’s unexplained failure to clarify his position until Trump was near the end of his speech on Jan 6th was an issue. A big one.

Pence’s statement was first released to Congress at 12:53 p.m. Four minutes later, individuals began jumping fencing located at 1st Street and at 12:58 p.m. a crowd broke “through fencing near the Peace Monument.”

To make matters potentially more inflammatory, Pence also sent his statement out broadly in a tweet at 1:02 EST, exactly 10 minutes before Trump wrapped up his speech before a huge crowd of tens of thousands of people.

At the exact moment of Pence’s tweet, fencing on the Capitol steps was breached. At 1:06 pm the joint session of Congress convened to count the electoral votes. At 1:12 pm Trump finished his speech at The Ellipse.

The situation at the Capitol continued to rapidly deteriorate and at 2:08 p.m. the Capitol was placed on lockdown. Between 2:11 and 2:18 p.m. the Capitol building was “breached” and at 2:18 p.m. the House called a recess during its debates over objections to the AZ electoral votes.

That was the end of any legal objections and debates in Congress. At 3:42 a.m. on Jan. 7, Pence certified the election results. Pence declared Biden the “President-Elect” with no further objections to the election results being heard.

Following the certification of votes, Pence shared that infamous “elbow bump” with speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

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