Jan. 6 committee holds third hearing

Ivan Raiklin, the man mentioned by name during Thursday’s hearing as having posted a memo called the “Operation Pence Card,” is a known associate of former President Donald Trump’s one-time national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The memo outlined a theory that the vice president could block certification of the election results on Jan. 6.

Raiklin has worked with Flynn and a group of other former military service members to spread various unfounded theories about how the 2020 election was compromised – an effort that began weeks before Jan. 6 and continued months after. 

They have also been heavily involved in efforts to file lawsuits and audits in various states challenging the election outcome. 

Raiklin first posted the “Pence Card” document on his social media accounts in mid-December 2020. 

Trump appeared to endorse the plan, retweeting one of Raiklin’s posts about the “Pence Card” on Dec. 23, 2020.

Raiklin posted his plan weeks before conservative attorney John Eastman drafted his own memo outlining a similar plan, which was embraced by Trump despite warnings it was not legally sound. 

Raiklin served as a Green Beret and at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has known Flynn for several years.

Former Vice President Mike Pence never believed he had the authority to unilaterally reject Electoral College votes, Pence's former chief counsel Greg Jacob testified to the House select committee on Thursday.

Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, told the committee in an earlier recorded deposition that Pence consulted with former Vice President Dan Quayle, who confirmed Pence’s view that he had only a ceremonial role in counting the Electoral College votes.

Former President Donald Trump's lawyer John Eastman said he did not believe other vice presidents, such as Al Gore after the 2000 election or Kamala Harris after the eventual 2024 election, could overturn elections — but he wanted former then-Vice President Mike Pence to do so, Pence's former counsel Greg Jacob told the Jan. 6 committee.

"This was one of the many points that we discussed on Jan. 5. [Eastman] had come into that meeting trying to persuade us that there was some validity to his theory. I viewed it as my objective to persuade him to acknowledge he was just wrong, and I thought this had to be one of the most powerful arguments," Jacob said.

Remember: No vice president has ever tried to overturn an election using the scheme that Eastman proposed, and his theories have been condemned as anti-democratic by a wide array of legal experts.

Previous vice presidents had to preside over the Electoral College process that cemented their defeats, like Richard Nixon did after the 1960 election and Al Gore after the 2000 election and Florida recount.

J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge who advised former Vice President Mike Pence, said he "would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the vice president overturn the 2020 election."

Luttig said "all the players" in the effort not to certify the 2020 election results "got wrapped around the axle by the historical evidence claim by Mr. Eastman," referring to John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who helped craft the scheme to overturn the election results on Jan. 6.

He called it "constitutional mischief."

Some context: Witnesses and lawmakers are citing the 12th Amendment frequently during today's hearing and here's why: The 12th Amendment outlines the electoral vote counting process and how a president and vice president of the United States will be certified into office.

Former President Donald Trump and Eastman perpetuated a false theory that the vice president could overturn the electoral college results, undermining the process stated in the 12th Amendment.

According to the 12th Amendment, "the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; —The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President."

The House Select Committee highlighted on Thursday how Trump attorney John Eastman knew his plan to try to block the election would fail if it went to the Supreme Court — yet the right-wing attorney continued to fuel Trump’s hope. 

Jacob said Eastman first tried to say the Supreme Court would land at 7-2 in their vote, if it came to them, then admitted his legal theory would lose 9-0, Jacob said. 

Eastman's legal theory was to have Pence unilaterally decide the results of the election, the House public hearing on Thursday has explained.

Jacob previously told the anecdote behind closed doors to the House – and that testimony became a cornerstone of the House’s argument that Eastman and Trump likely engaged in planning a crime. A federal judge has agreed with their argument. 

Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar, member of the Jan. 6 select committee, discussed how testimony given to the committee outlined concerns White House counsel and others had over the false theory that Vice President Pence could overturn the 2020 election results.

Fox host Sean Hannity even reached out to the White House, expressing concerns that the White House counsel would resign over the perpetuation of the false theory.

Hannity wrote to Meadows again a few days later on Jan. 5, 2021, reiterating his concern about the counsel's office resigning.

The Fox host reached out to the White House numerous times between Election Day 2020 and President Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, according to texts obtained by CNN that Meadows provided to the Jan. 6 select committee.

Read part of the Hannity and Meadows text exchange:

Greg Jacob, former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief counsel, told the House select committee on Thursday that Pence’s legal team reviewed every election in American history as they examined whether a sitting vice president had the authority to reject Electoral College votes.

“In the entire history of the United States, not once had a joint session ever returned electoral votes back to the states to be counted,” he said.

Jacob also testified that he told Trump lawyer John Eastman, who pushed the theory, that if the vice president did have that power, it would stand to reason that Democrats would have discovered the “obvious quirk” and that Al Gore would have tried to declare himself president in 2000.

“And of course [Eastman] acknowledged Al Gore did not and should not have had that authority at that point in time,” Jacob testified Thursday.

Former Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann told the Jan. 6 Committee that conservative attorney John Eastman told him he was willing to accept violence in order to overturn the 2020 election.

The committee played video from Herschmann’s deposition where he described a conversation with Eastman about his claims that Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the election in Congress.

Herschmann continued by telling Eastman: “They’re not going to tolerate that. You’re going to cause riots in the streets.”

Herschmann���s interview was played as part of a video montage where numerous former Trump advisers said that Eastman’s views that Trump could overturn the election were “crazy” and did not have any validity.

Trump campaign spokesperson Jason Miller told the committee in a deposition that White House counsel Pat Cipollone “though the idea was nutty” and had confronted Eastman about it.

Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, said that Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows told him “a couple of times” that he understood the vice president did not have a role to block the certification of presidential electors.

“I believe that Mark did agree,” Short said of Meadows.

Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann told the House Select Committee that former President Donald Trump’s then-attorney, Rudy Giuliani, seemed to concede on the morning of Jan. 6 that the vice president did not have the authority to decide the outcome of the election or send it back to the states.

During Thursday’s public hearing, the committee played previously unseen video from Herschmann’s closed-door deposition where recalls his conversation with Giuliani on the morning of US Capitol riot where he appeared to break with conservative attorney John Eastman on the “VP’s role.”

“He was asking me my view and analysis and the practical implications of it. And when we finished, he said, 'Look, I believe, that you know, you’re probably right,'” Herschmann said, describing how Giuliani ultimately acknowledged that former Vice President Mike Pence likely did not have the authority to do what Trump was asking.

Still, Giuliani’s conversation with Herschmann did not stop him from saying the exact opposite just hours later while on stage at the Trump rally while standing alongside Eastman.

“Every single thing that has been outlined as the plan for today is perfectly legal,” Giuliani said during his speech on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse. “I have Professor Eastman here with me to say a few words about that.”

“It is perfectly appropriate … that the vice president can … decide on the validity of these crooked ballots, or he can send it back to the legislators, give them five to 10 days to finally finish the work, Giuliani added.

Herschmann is just one of several witnesses who have testified about how those closest to Trump and the former President himself, were warned that their plan to overturn the election was on shaky legal ground but they continued to pursue it any way.