Oct 31, 2022 - Politics & Policy

First look: Mike Pence's new book reveals key moment before Jan. 6

Mike Allen

In former Vice President Mike Pence's "So Help Me God" — out Nov. 15 — he describes a scene in November 2020, just after the election, when he and former President Trump met in the Oval Office to review legal challenges with the campaign's lawyers.

An excerpt obtained by Axios: "What began as a briefing that Thursday afternoon quickly turned into a contentious back-and-forth between the campaign lawyers and a growing group of outside attorneys led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, an attorney who had represented General Mike Flynn."

After the campaign lawyers gave a sober and somewhat pessimistic report on the state of election challenges, the outside cast of characters went on the attack ... Giuliani told the president over the speakerphone, "Your lawyers are not telling you the truth, Mr. President."

"Even in an office well acquainted with rough-and-tumble debates, it was a new low .... [and] went downhill from there," Pence writes.

"In the end, that day the president made the fateful decision to put Giuliani and Sidney Powell in charge of the legal strategy ... The seeds were being sown for a tragic day in January."

Go deeper: More on the book

Add Axios on Google

First look: Mike Pence's new book reveals key moment before Jan. 6

What to read next