Former Vice President Mike Pence could become a hero of American democracy, but he would rather be president.

  Pence knows how Donald Trump attempted to overthrow the 2020 election because he would have been the instrument for doing it. Pence could  tell the January 6^th committee in detail how Trump pressured him to “do the right thing,” ignore the law, void the results of the election won by Joe Biden, and re-install the un-elected outgoing president. His testimony could be critical in determining whether Trump should be criminally charged for attempting to cause a constitutional crisis and inflaming the crowds that stormed the Capitol.

  Instead, Pence is calculating how testifying would affect his plans to run for president. He has been reported to have been in touch with the committee, negotiating terms, and noodling the idea of whether to testify at all. The NY Times reports that Pence believes the committee has taken a partisan turn because it’s considering criminal referrals for people who tried to overthrow the election, as if that wouldn’t be a crime.

  Providing testimony unflattering to Donald Trump would be the end of Pence’s political career. Any prominent Republican who turns on Trump is dead to the crowd that could get them elected to national office. Pence is already in danger even considering running in a race in which Donald Trump might also be a candidate. 

   What Mike Pence does not know, or refuses to admit, is that his political career is already over. If Donald Trump doesn’t run in 2024, the next name on every Republican’s lips is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, not Pence, who isn’t even in the top four. South Carolina’s former Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott are also ahead of Pence in the line of popularity.

  Mike Pence is a character out of an Edward Albee play who refers to his wife as “Mother.” Name one thing that Pence has ever said or done that’s inspiring or showed courage and leadership. The deeply religious Pence has described himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” As a member of Congress from Indiana he was so conservative he fought the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind Act” and creation of Medicare Part D, the now wildly successful prescription drug benefit. He voted to cut funding for Planned Parenthood.

  As Trump’s appointed front man to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, he said the crisis would pass by Memorial Day. By June of 2020, he was blaming the media for “sounding alarm bells” over spikes in infections. Nearly two years later, close to 900,000 Americans are dead of Covid-19.

  The single great thing Pence has done in his life was to stand up to Donald Trump on January 6^th, 2021, and confirm Joe Biden as the elected President of the United States. Now given the opportunity to tell the country the truth, even to embellish his own bravery in defying Trump, Pence chooses to say nothing. 

   If Pence refuses to testify he might force the January 6^th committee to subpoena a former vice president, something Congress has not done since former president and vice president John Tyler was called in 1846. Instead of volunteering the truth, Pence would be giving the country a fight.  

  This most unmemorable and unelectable man has one sterling chance to make a mark. Mike Pence has the opportunity to define his life, to be the man who put personal ambition and career aside and stand up for democracy. He could tell the truth about Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the Constitution and go down as a hero in American history, the man who did the right thing. 

-30-