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Former Vice President Mike Pence still won't say whether he's running for president next year, and he won't speak ill of his ex-boss, former President Donald Trump. But in an interview with CBS News in Michigan on Wednesday, he also twice declined to commit to supporting Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee.

Instead, Pence said he believes voters in 2024 will choose "wisely again," as they did in 2016. But said he thinks "different times call for different leadership."

"I'm very confident we'll have better choices come 2024," he told CBS News political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns. "And I'm confident our standard-bearer will win the day in November of that year."

But if Pence does run, he's offering a vision of conservative principles and Trump-era like policies without the Trump-era personality. The former vice president said his message in a speech to young voters in Michigan Wednesday was to "resist the temptation of focusing on personalities or embracing a populism unmoored to conservative principle."

"You know, I joined the Republican Party in the days of Ronald Reagan, and I really believe that the conservative movement has always been animated by ideas," Pence said. "We've had big personalities, from Reagan all the way to Donald Trump. But I think it's the ideas of commitment to a strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, limited government and traditional values that really I think created this movement in many ways and I think they still sustain it."

Pence said recently that he would make a decision on whether to run by "this spring," which now is just weeks away. On Wednesday, Pence said he and his wife, Karen, would continue to listen to the American people and should have a clear sense of whether he should run by this spring.

Pence told CBS News he and Karen are "continuing to give prayerful consideration to entering the race."

Asked if he wants to reflect a "pre-Trump Republican Party," Pence said he wants to be true to his calling in public life and would shun any campaign that wholly focuses on the negative.

"As I've traveled around the country, I've heard again and again that people look at the record of the Trump-Pence administration. They want to get back to our policies of a strong defense, American leadership in the world, a vibrant free-market economy, secure borders and conservative judges. But I also hear that they they want to see us get back to the kind of civility in politics that the American people show each other every day."

Pence, asked if entitlement reform would be a key piece of his platform, laid out what a Pence platform could look like.

"My wife and I are continuing to give prayerful consideration to entering the race for the Republican nomination for president," Pence said. "But I can assure you that if we choose to run, we'll bring that broad conservative agenda that's characterized my life and my career before. That means a strong national defense, it means standing up for America's place as leader of the free world. Confronting aggression, whether it's in eastern Europe or standing strong in the Asia Pacific."

"But yes, it also means promoting policies that will get the economy growing again but also advancing policies that will set our national budget on a sustainable pathway," he continued. "I must say, the American people have a demonstrated ability to do hard things. But it's only been at those times in our history when we've had leaders that were willing to be straight with the American people. Tell them what the real challenges are, what the solutions are. And if I'm called into that contest, I'll speak just that way."

The former vice president also defended his decision to challenge a subpoena in from the special counsel overseeing investigations into efforts by Trump and Trump allies to alter the results of the 2020 presidential election. Pence's team argues it's unconstitutional to compel a former vice president to testify in the case, although some legal scholars disagree.

"The notion of compelling a former vice president to appear in court to testify against the president with whom they served is unprecedented, but I also believe it's unconstitutional," Pence said, adding that he's "limited in what I can say about those proceedings."

The former vice president also declined to criticize other potential or declared candidates, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But he did disagree with former Gov. Nikki Haley's position that there should be a competency test for politicians over 75 years of age.

"I come from southern Indiana, where people think most politicians should have a competency test," Pence joked.

"No, I think the American people can sort that out. I really do," he added.

Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital based in Washington, D.C.

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Pence won't commit to supporting Trump if he's the nominee

Former Vice President Mike Pence has declined an invitation to the Conservative Political Action Conference, sources told ABC News.

The decision by Pence, who is debating a 2024 presidential run, comes as other notable figures are absent from this year's lineup.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who spoke at CPAC last year, has two events scheduled in Texas as CPAC gets underway in Maryland.

A spokesperson for CPAC told ABC News that neither Pence nor DeSantis are currently slated to attend.

"It's a missed opportunity for any potential Presidential Candidate to not address the thousands of grassroots activists at CPAC this year. Luckily, CPAC attendees will get to hear from every announced Presidential candidate and over 100 premiere speakers, including over 30 elected officials," Megan Powers, a spokesperson for CPAC, told ABC News on Saturday.

DeSantis' spokesperson did not respond to ABC News' request for comment. A spokesperson for Pence declined to comment.

Pence did not attend the event in 2022 and declined an invitation in 2021. This year's absences come as the chairman of CPAC -- which bills itself as the "largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world" -- is embroiled in a sexual assault scandal.

Earlier this year, a staffer for one-time Senate candidate Herschel Walker alleged that Matt Schlapp, the chairman of CPAC, "groped" and "fondled" his crotch while he was driving Schlapp back from a bar in Atlanta, according to a report from The Daily Beast. The staffer then filed a lawsuit against Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes, seeking $9.4 million for sexual battery and defamation, according to a report.

A statement from Schlapp's attorney at the time said the complaint is "false" and the "Schlapps and their legal team are assessing counter lawsuit options."

But some say the allegations have "exacerbated" issues for the organization.

"It shouldn't come as a surprise that CPAC is not attracting the big names that it once did. There's a feeling within the Republican Party that CPAC has long abandoned the traditional values that it once stood for," one GOP operative said. "The allegations against Matt Schlapp for allegedly 'pummeling' a man's 'junk' against his will have only exacerbated these issues and are likely to contribute to further decline by the organization."

Still, the event had drawn speakers such as former President Donald Trump and ambassador Nikki Haley, both of whom have declared their candidacy for 2024.

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently called for a "national divorce" between Republican and Democratic states, is also scheduled to speak.

Kari Lake, the Trump-backed candidate who lost her bid for governor in Arizona and pushed false claims of election fraud, will be the featured speaker for Friday night's Reagan dinner.

The CPAC announcement praised her as "a rare leader who captured the hearts of conservatives with her honest, bold message including closing the Arizona border and exposing widespread election fraud."

"CPAC is a great place for conservatives to come together, Lake said in a video posted on Twitter by Schlapp last week.

The event is scheduled to run from March 1-4.

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Mike Pence declines invitation to CPAC as event's leader comes under ...

Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to compel Vice President Mike Pence to comply with a grand jury subpoena for his testimony in a criminal investigation of ex-President Donald Trump for efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden, a new report says.

The sealed motion, filed in recent days with Chief Judge Beryl Howell in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., came after attorneys for Trump asserted executive privilege over Pence's subpoena, CBS News reported Thursday.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the probe, obtained grand jury subpoenas compelling the testimony of Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner.

Both Ivanka Trump and Kushner served as senior White House advisors during her father's administration.

Trump previously sought to exercise executive privilege which allows certain presidential communications to be kept confidential over grand jury testimony in the probe, news outlets have reported.

He has also tried to invoke it in other recent legal matters, including a battle over the hundreds of documents seized by the FBI last summer from his personal residence at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Smith also is leading a criminal probe of Trump in connection with that case.

Smith's motion to compel Pence's testimony in the election investigation asks Howell to uphold the legal authority of the grand jury subpoena, according to CBS, which cited people familiar with the case.

Pence's spokesman, when asked about the report by CNBC, pointed to CBS' reporting that Howell recently issued a gag order barring people involved in the probe from commenting on it.

Howell on Thursday rejected an effort by media outlets to access records related to the grand jury investigation.

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment to CNBC. An attorney for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pence last week said he would fight the subpoena.

"No vice president in American history has ever been compelled to testify against a president with whom they serve," Pence said.

Pence plans to argue that his former role as president of the Senate which he held by virtue of being vice president of the United States means he is covered by the Constitution's "speech or debate" clause, which can protect legislative branch members from legal threats related to their work.

An attorney for Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., cited that clause earlier Thursday, telling a federal appeals court that the Justice Department has no authority to search the congressman's cell phone as part of the agency's probe of Trump.

Separately, the FBI seized a classified document in a search of Pence's home earlier this month.

That consensual search was scheduled weeks after an attorney for Pence alerted the government to a "small number" of records with classified markings that were found at his residence.

Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Smith as special counsel in November, in response to Trump's announcement that he is running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

At the end of his first term in office on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump urged Pence to help challenge the election results by rejecting key Electoral College votes for Biden.

After Pence refused,a violent mob of Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, sending the vice president and congressional lawmakers into hiding.

Pence, who is teasing a possible White House run of his own, said he believes there will be "better choices" than Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Read the full report from CBS.

Continued here:
Trump investigation: Mike Pence testimony sought by prosecutor

Mike Pence is expected to fight his grand jury subpoena as part of the January 6 criminal investigation with the speech or debate protection a move that could prevent the special counsel from obtaining his testimony about key conversations with Donald Trump and members of Congress.

The special counsel overseeing the Trump investigations recently issued a subpoena to Pence a key witness with unique insight into a number of conversations with the former president and the efforts to stop the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Pence spoke to Trump one-on-one on 6 January 2021, when Trump was imploring him to unlawfully reject electoral college votes for Biden at the joint session of Congress, and was at a December 2021 meeting at the White House with Republican lawmakers who discussed objections to Bidens win.

The two interactions are of particular investigative interest to the special counsel Jack Smith as his office examines whether Trump sought to unlawfully obstruct the certification and defrauded the United States in seeking to overturn the 2020 election results.

Pence is not expected to ignore the grand jury subpoena, in recognition that some of the special counsels questions might pertain to issues beyond his role as presiding officer on 6 January a role the vice-president assumes when certifying a presidential election such as deliberations on election night, according to people familiar with the matter.

But Pence would invoke the speech or debate clause the constitutional provision that protects congressional officials from legal proceedings related to their work for testimony about his preparations for the day with Trump and members of Congress that the special counsel might not otherwise be able to obtain.

The issue for the special counsel is broadly whether the presiding officer at the joint session is protected by the clause, and if so, the extent of the protection for Pence in his preparations for assuming that role.

The crux of it is whether theyre going to treat him as a senator or representative whether he is covered by the text, said Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

But if you get past the threshold question, the historical distinction between legislative and political functions seems to put Pences behaviour on the legislative side of the line, Vladeck said, adding that the clause would probably be absolute for any deliberations Pence had about preparing for the joint session.

Pences lawyer would probably argue that not only is the joint session a legislative function as the justice department has said in prosecutions against low-level January 6 rioters but the presiding officer is more than just a ceremonial or ministerial role.

The logic comes in part from the fact that the presiding officer at the certification acts like the presiding officer when Congress is normally in session, or the chief justice during impeachment trials, adjudicating objections and complex parliamentary matters of procedure.

And if Pence can successfully show that he is covered by the speech or debate clause, legal experts said, supreme court precedent suggests the protection is absolute and cannot be overcome even by showing an overwhelming need for Pences testimony or underlying criminal activity.

So long as Pence is entitled to the protections of the immunity, there would be no way for the government to overcome that privilege where it applies, unlike executive privilege, said Stan Brand, the former general counsel to the House of Representatives and partner at Brand Woodward Law.

The supreme court ruled 8-1 in Eastland v United States Servicemens Fund (1975) that the clause was absolute when applied, superseding a 5-4 decision in Gravel v United States (1972) that the protection did not immunize a senator from testifying in cases involving third-party crimes.

The Gravel decision could be problematic for the special counsel, since the court separately found that Senator Mike Gravels preparation with his aide to introduce the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record was protected indicating acts in preparation for legislative activity are off-limits.

With Pence, those two cases could be particularly instructive, since the caselaw appears to fall squarely on what the special counsel is expected to want most from him: his deliberations with Trump and members of Congress about using objections and fake electors to overturn the election results.

And in United States v Helstoski (1979), the supreme court reiterated the absolute nature of the speech and debate clause for members, which prevented them from being questioned in any other place than Congress.

The 6-2 majority opinion in Helstoski in particular rebutted Justice John Paul Stevens assertion in dissent, that the admissibility of speech or debate should depend on the purpose for which it is offered, finding instead that the clause does not refer to the prosecutors purpose in offering evidence.

A potential exception to the speech or debate clause surfaced in United States v Brewster (1972) and later in Helstoski in 1979 for promises to take future legislative action.

But for Senator Daniel Brewster, who had been charged for soliciting and accepting bribes in exchange for introducing bills, the supreme court ruled that while the promise to accept a bribe was not covered, the legislative acts he undertook to complete his side of the arrangement voting, debating remained protected.

The court found only the illegal arrangement was not protected suggesting that the question of whether Trumps conduct was illegal would not strip Pence of the privilege against testifying.

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Mike Pence effort to block January 6 testimony could succeed, experts ...

Former Vice President Mike Pence recently announced he would challenge Special Counsel Jack Smiths subpoena for him to appear before a grand jury in Washington as part of the investigation into former President Donald Trumps efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the related Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Pence claimed that the Biden D.O.J. subpoena was unconstitutional and unprecedented. He added, For me, this is a moment where you have to decide where you stand, and I stand on the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Pence vowed to take his fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

A politician should be careful what he wishes for no more so than when hes a possible presidential candidate who would have the Supreme Court decide a constitutional case that could undermine his viability in an upcoming campaign.

The former vice president should not want the embarrassing spectacle of the Supreme Court compelling him to appear before a grand jury in Washington just when hes starting his campaign for the presidency; recall the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the fatally damning Oval Office tapes. That has to be an uncomfortable prospect for Mr. Pence, not to mention a potentially damaging one for a man who at least as of today is considered by many of us across the political spectrum to be a profile in courage for his refusal to join in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election in the face of Donald Trumps demands. And to be clear, Mr. Pences decision to brand the Department of Justices perfectly legitimate subpoena as unconstitutional is a far cry from the constitutionally hallowed ground he stood on Jan. 6.

Injecting campaign-style politics into the criminal investigatory process with his rhetorical characterization of Mr. Smiths subpoena as a Biden D.O.J. subpoena, Mr. Pence is trying to score points with voters who want to see President Biden unseated in 2024. Well enough. Thats what politicians do. But Jack Smiths subpoena was neither politically motivated nor designed to strengthen President Bidens political hand in 2024. Thus the jarring dissonance between the subpoena and Mr. Pences characterization of it. It is Mr. Pence who has chosen to politicize the subpoena, not the D.O.J.

As to the merits of his claim, The New York Times and other news media have reported that Mr. Pence plans to argue that when he presided over the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 as president of the Senate, he was effectively a legislator and therefore entitled to the privileges and protections of the Constitutions speech or debate clause. That clause is intended to protect members of Congress from questioning and testifying about official legislative acts. Should the courts support his claim, Mr. Pence would not be required to comply with Mr. Smiths subpoena. Mr. Pence may also be under the impression that the legal fight over his claim will confound the courts, consuming months, if not longer, before he receives the verdict but its unclear what he hopes to gain from the delay. One would have thought Mr. Pence would have seized the propitious opportunity afforded him by Mr. Smith, most likely weeks or months before he even decides whether he will run for the presidency.

If Mr. Pences lawyers or advisers have told him that it will take the federal courts months and months or longer to decide his claim and that he will never have to testify before the grand jury, they are mistaken. We can expect the federal courts to make short shrift of this Hail Mary claim, and Mr. Pence doesnt have a chance in the world of winning his case in any federal court and avoiding testifying before the grand jury.

Inasmuch as Mr. Pences claim is novel and an unsettled question in constitutional law, it is only novel and unsettled because there has never been a time in our countrys history where it was thought imperative for someone in a vice presidents position, or his lawyer, to conjure the argument. In other words, Mr. Pences claim is the proverbial invention of the mother of necessity if ever there was one.

Any protections the former vice president is entitled to under the speech and debate clause will be few in number and limited in scope. There are relatively few circumstances in which a former vice president would be entitled to constitutional protection for his conversations related to his ceremonial and ministerial roles of presiding over the electoral vote count. What Mr. Smith wants to know about are Mr. Pences communications and interactions with Mr. Trump before, and perhaps during, the vote count, which are entirely fair game for a grand jury investigating possible crimes against the United States.

Whatever the courts may or may not find the scope of any protection to be, they will unquestionably hold that Mr. Pence is nonetheless required to testify in response to Mr. Smiths subpoena. Even if a vice president has speech or debate clause protections, they will yield to a federal subpoena to appear before the grand jury. This is especially true where, as here, a vice president seeks to protect his conversations with a president who himself is under federal criminal investigation for obstructing the very official proceedings in which the special counsel is interested.

Mr. Pence and his inner circle should be under no illusion that the lower federal courts will take their time dispensing with this claim. The courts quickly disposed of Senator Lindsey Grahams speech or debate clause claim, requiring him to testify before the grand jury empaneled in Fulton County, Ga. and his claim was far stronger than Mr. Pences. In the unlikely event that Mr. Pences claim were to make it to the Supreme Court, it, too, could be expected to take swift action.

Mr. Pence undoubtedly has some of the finest lawyers in the country helping him navigate this treacherous path forward, and they will certainly earn their hefty fees. But in cases like this, the best lawyers earn their pay less when they advise and argue their clients cases in public than when they elegantly choreograph the perfect exit in private before their clients get the day in court they wished for.

Mr. Pences lawyers would be well advised to have Jack Smiths phone number on speed dial and call him before he calls them. The special counsel will be waiting, though not nearly as long as Mr. Pences lawyers may be thinking. No prosecutor, least of all Mr. Smith, will abide this political gambit for long. And Mr. Pence shouldnt let this dangerous gambit play out for long. If he does, it will be more than he wished for.

It is a time-tested axiom in the law never to ask questions you dont know the answer to. This should apply to politicians in spades. But the die has been cast by the former vice president. The only question now is not whether he will have to testify before the grand jury, but how soon. The special counsel is in the drivers seat, and the timing of Mr. Pences appearance before the grand jury is largely in his hands. Mr. Smith will bide his time for only so long.

J. Michael Luttig, a former judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, provided advice to then-Vice President Mike Pence on the run-up to the Electoral College count on Jan. 6, 2021.

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Opinion | Mike Pence Should Drop His Grand Jury Subpoena Gambit - The ...