Donald Trump was not upset when the mob he sent to the U.S. Capitol chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” Two years later, Pence is set to fight a special counsel’s subpoena to come talk about Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Pence will reportedly challenge Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena not on executive privilege claims—though Trump will likely try to assert executive privilege—but on the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which Pence will argue protects him from questioning due to his former role as president of the Senate.

But really Pence is trying to walk that line. Everything he’s done since January 6, 2021 shows that he thinks he can have some image as an independent statesman who does the right thing under pressure, while also staying loyal enough to Trump to remain a Republican in good standing. In reality, he accomplishes neither. He didn’t do what Trump wanted on January 6 and he will never be forgiven for that, by Trump or his followers. The rest of the country gave him enough credit for that refusal to tempt him to think he could become known as a noble figure, but he doesn’t have the courage or integrity to do what he would need to do to really occupy that role.

The “speech or debate” clause Pence will reportedly lean on in his refusal to comply with the special counsel’s subpoena exempts members of Congress from ever facing any kind of consequence for anything they did in relation to their office.

They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

This is the same clause that Sen. Lindsey Graham leaned on in attempting to get out of testifying to a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury about his part in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Graham was ultimately ordered to testify, though a judge ruled some areas of questioning off-limits because they did relate to his legislative work. That points to a possible middle ground on Pence’s efforts, in which some of his conversations but not others are ruled off-limits.

Pence is reportedly going to say that, because on January 6 he was acting as president of the Senate, all of his conversations with Trump about the outcome of the 2020 election in the preceding months were covered by the “speech or debate” clause. That seems like a pretty sweeping interpretation of “any Speech or Debate in either House.”

“He thinks that the ‘speech or debate’ clause is a core protection for Article I, for the legislature,” a source “familiar with Pence’s thinking” told Politico. “He feels it really goes to the heart of some separation of powers issues. He feels duty-bound to maintain that protection, even if it means litigating it.”

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Mind you, Pence has written a book and an op-ed airing all this publicly, but he feels duty-bound not to discuss it, specifically, with the special counsel? Sure.

Mike Pence feels duty-bound to what he imagines his political future in the Republican Party to be to be seen putting up a fight against testifying in a way that could hurt Donald Trump, the man he spend four years sucking up to in a way any adult should have found deeply humiliating.

Politico found legal experts willing to argue each side of whether the vice president is protected by the “speech or debate” clause. The Senate and Justice Department have both taken the position that the vice president’s role as president of the Senate is a legislative one that falls under the clause. On the other hand, “The literal language is that this applies to ‘senators and representatives,’” Neil Eggleston, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, pointed out. “I think, by the language, this does not apply and the argument is completely frivolous.”

But the main point here, more than what legal protection Mike Pence can possibly invoke and fight out in the courts and maybe win after months of legal wrangling, is that Pence does not want to testify. It’s not like he couldn’t talk if he wanted to. This is not some kind of full-on constitutional gag order, it’s an out Pence is choosing to take. Or try to, if the courts agree or he simply manages to use the courts to drag things out for long enough that the special counsel gives up in the name of wrapping up the investigation.

Republished with permission from Daily Kos.