The idea that ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse for wrongdoing is an idea that goes all the way back to Aristotle. But in the Trump regime, ignorance seems to be the excuse that gets used over, and over, and over. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster confirmed that Donald Trump acts from a place of ignorance, where his own short attention span—and the staffers who cater to that failing—results in damage to national interests.
And for weeks the excuse for why Mike Pence defended false statements about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is that Pence was ignorant. He simply didn’t know that Flynn was an unregistered foreign agent using his position in the new government to benefit his paymasters. The problem with Pence’s disingenuous naïveté is not just that Pence was warned in November by Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), and warned in January by Flynn himself, it’s that knowing this was Pence’s job. As both the vice-president-elect and the chair of Trump’s transition team, Pence was expected to vet and confirm the security of every cabinet nominee, Flynn included.
Mike Pence’s position that he simply didn’t know isn’t just defense through ignorance, it’s defense through incompetence.
And, as Charles Blow notes, it’s not very believable.
It isn’t possible Pence knew nothing. I believe Pence is a liar like his boss.
We knew that Pence was a liar when during the vice-presidential debate he repeatedly claimed that Trump had not in fact said things that he was recorded on television saying.
Mike Pence’s “defense” is that he is so bad at his job, he failed at one of the most basic demands of his position, didn’t bother to read critical information sent to him, and was completely out of the loop in the team he was supposedly reading.
And that’s what Pence wants you to believe.
The only difference between the two is delivery. Trump is bombastic and abrasive with his lies. Pence cleverly delivers his with earnestness and solemnity. But a lie is a lie.
If what Mike Pence is saying were true, then he’s be far too incompetent to be trusted with an position of responsibility. But it’s not true.
And, somehow, that’s even worse.