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MAGA stops, TV and the pope: How Pence plans to sidestep impeachment
MAGA stops, TV and the pope: How Pence plans to sidestep impeachment
Yet the vice president keeps getting entangled in a mess he has deliberately tried to avoid as he considers a White House bid of his own in 2024.
By GABBY ORR and DARREN SAMUELSOHN
01/21/2020 05:04 AM EST
Halfway through Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, on the same day the Senate refused to dismiss two charges against him, Vice President Al Gore arrived at an airport hangar in St. Louis to greet Pope John Paul II before he returned to Rome.
This time, Mike Pence is going straight to Rome himself.
The current vice president will meet with Pope Francis in Vatican City this week while his own boss’ impeachment trial is underway — ditching Washington for a trip that will keep him thousands of miles away from the high-stakes saga threatening to upend not only Trump’s political future, but increasingly his own.
Apart from Trump himself, few politicians have as much to gain or lose over the next few weeks as the man second in line for the presidency. Though the outcome of Trump’s trial has appeared preordained for weeks — conviction and removal from office would require an unrealistic 20 Republican defections— potential witnesses and new evidence released by House Democrats last Tuesday could entangle the vice president in a mess he has deliberately tried to sidestep as he considers a White House bid of his own in 2024.
But despite his best efforts, Pence keeps getting pulled into the scandal at the heart of impeachment — that the president withheld financial aid as leverage to pressure Ukraine to announce politically advantageous probes. Pence met with Ukraine’s president in Trump’s place during the period the aid was being withheld, Trump has suggested reporters press Pence about his communications with the Ukrainian leader and several figures have accused Pence of knowing about the scheme, which the vice president denies.
“It’s trickier for him to be in all-on defense mode when he’s been implicated in the underlying allegations,” said Michael Feldman, a former senior adviser to Gore.
more...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/21/mike-pence-avoids-impeachment-pope-maga-tv-101238