ATLANTA — Former Vice President Mike Pence has been added to the witness list in the Georgia 2020 election RICO case against Donald Trump and 14 others, according to a CNN report Wednesday morning.
Witness lists have not been publicly released in the case. CNN reported Pence was among 150 names on the most recent version of the list, produced by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' office in recent days, citing "multiple sources familiar with court documents that remain under seal."
Were he to testify at an eventual trial in Fulton County, Pence would mark as one of the highest profile witnesses in the case - as well as one of the witnesses closest to the events that followed the 2020 election.
The former vice president was key to at least one plan to keep Trump in office that's been highlighted in the Georgia case - disputing the official count of the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jenna Ellis, an attorney with the Trump campaign in 2020, has already taken a deal to plead guilty in the Georgia case. She had been charged for her involvement in writing least two legal memos to Trump and his attorneys advising that Pence should “disregard certified electoral college votes from Georgia and other purportedly ‘contested’ states” when Congress met to certify the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors have said.
Three others - attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, and Atlanta businessman Scott Hall - have also taken plea deals in the case.
The vice president is responsible for officially counting the Electoral College votes submitted by states in what historically is a solely ceremonial process. Trump, allies of the former president and attorneys including Ellis crafted a theory that the vice president in fact could claim the power to reject some votes during this process.
Pence rejected that idea at the time, writing in a letter to Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 that, "It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not."
