One of the plot lines to emerge from the ‘national security adviser secretly making promises to the Russian ambassador’ sub-scandal of the greater Trump/Russia super-scandal is the ‘poor Pence in the wilderness’ saga. You know the one.
Vice President Pence first learned that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled him about the nature of his contact with a Russian official on Feb. 9, a full two weeks after other White House officials were briefed on the matter, an aide to Pence said on Tuesday.
By this account, Mike Pence nodded along to the “nothing going on here” given him by Flynn following the revelation of the phone calls to the ambassador, and Pence dutifully, innocently, ignorantly repeated the lies Flynn told him.
It’s a very convenient narrative for the man who totally isn’t whispering the word “impeachment” into every passing ear. It’s also convenient for the Trump regime to preserve the idea of Pence as an “honest broker” who can be counted on to, if not deliver the truth, at least deliver his understanding of the truth.
The idea that Pence is “out of the loop” has emerged as a tool for both Trump and Pence, but the truth is that Pence is one of the most influential and most insider vice presidents in recent history. It’s Pence who has been driving the regime’s policy in Congress.
Vice President Pence told Republican members of Congress on Thursday to "buckle up" and get ready to work with the new Trump administration on everything from repealing Obamacare to confirming a "strict constructionist" to fill the Supreme Court.
And Pence has been notably present for Trump’s phone calls, meetings with foreign leaders, signing of executive orders, and welcoming cabinet members. Pence has been almost omnipresent. The idea that Trump would be briefed about Flynn’s misdeeds and Pence would not be there is an especially handy tale for those wanting to pretend that Flynn was dismissed for no reason other than “trust.”
That’s the idea that Trump and Co. want to sell.
Pence is said to have been angry and deeply frustrated over the revelations.
That’s despite Trump’s statements today that he still stands by the man he dismissed because he couldn’t trust him.
Believing in a bewildered, sniffling, hurt-to-the-quick Pence would require not just that Flynn lied to Pence; and Trump kept Pence in the dark; and none of the briefings reached his ears; and Bannon and Preibus and all the others who did know also didn’t talk. It would also require that Pence—a regular participant in news shows—never watched those shows or opened a paper. Speculation and leaks about Flynn were out there for days before Pence claims to have developed a clue.
Mike Pence, innocent man among thieves, is a fiction that all sides in the Trump regime are carefully maintaining.
It’s not as if Mike Pence has a great interest in the idea of truth. Just ask Keith Cooper.
Keith Cooper of Elkhart, Indiana, has maintained his innocence since he was charged with robbery and attempted murder in 1997. Tried and convicted in a single day, Cooper was sentenced to 40 years in prison for robbery resulting in serious injury. But while Cooper was behind bars, evidence of his innocence grew. The witnesses who testified against him recanted their statements. A DNA test implicated a different man. By 2014, Indiana’s parole board and the prosecutor who put Cooper away unanimously recommended Pence to issue a pardon. For years, Pence refused. It took Pence’s successor exactly one month to pardon him.
Cooper’s story, in which he was accused of one robbery (with the evidence being that he was black and in the area) only to end up being charged with an even greater crime (with the evidence being that he was black and in the area) is a tragedy of injustice at every step. A tragedy that came down like a hammer on three generations of an African-American family.
And it’s a tragedy that was prolonged for years by Mike Pence, even though he knew that Cooper was innocent. Because hanging a felony charge on an innocent black man bolstered Pence’s cred with exactly the frightened, bigoted, white voters that he and Trump depend on.
“I can’t speak for Gov. Pence and the decisions he made,” [Cooper’s lawyer] said. “What I can tell you is that I think Gov. Pence was trying to be savvy politically. He obviously at a point was angling to be the vice president. This pardon petition was squarely on his desk. It was something that was being covered extensively in the media. I imagine Gov. Pence knew that if he had granted this pardon while the election was going on that, politically, it wasn’t a palatable thing for him and the base of people he was trying to appeal to while on the ticket with Donald Trump.”\
Keith Cooper is the one thing that Mike Pence is not: innocent.
Any idea that Mike Pence is not complicit in the Trump administration’s actions, or somehow not included in the decision making, is a deception. His “distance” from Trump suits them both, but it’s just as illusory as Pence’s honesty.