Overview
- Pence’s handwritten day-planner notes from the morning of Jan. 6 record Trump pressuring him to block certification and saying he would “go down as a wimp.”
- The notes, published for the first time in Karl’s Retribution excerpt, include a scribbled angry face after Trump told Pence he listens to the wrong people.
- Court filings show special counsel Jack Smith planned to use the notes as evidence documenting the hours before Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s victory.
- Investigators also gathered draft versions showing Trump’s Ellipse speech was hastily revised to target Pence and a forensic copy of Trump’s phone that accessed images of the Capitol violence.
- The case was dismissed after a Supreme Court immunity ruling and Trump’s 2024 reelection, though Smith’s final report said the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.