Pence: "I'm not getting in the car."

A successful coup d'état was much closer than we understood.

Vice President Mike Pence said "no" to Trump. And then he defied his Secret Service detail.

As I had understood the 11-week period between the 2020 election and Biden's inauguration, an intransigent and largely-isolated Trump had an outrageous plan to deny the results of the election. It culminated in a mob attacking the Capitol. Trump was aided by a few lawyers and spokespeople who had a Keystone Cops quality as they cast about for evidence of fraud. They made wild and defamatory accusations that repeatedly failed in the courts. The effort failed.

Trump's plan came across as near-hopeless because what he wanted to do was outside all norms in America. Trump didn't concede. He didn't make graceful good-sport post-election statements about the peaceful transfer of power. He instead demanded America award the presidency to the person who lost the election. How crazy. How hopeless. This isn't a banana republic. I took comfort: The bigger story was one of American resilience. Sanity and justice prevailed. 

We understood Trump was thwarted by people--including many Republicans--who did their duty. These people included the governor and secretary of state in Georgia, the governor in Arizona, one of the two Republican election-certifiers in Michigan, the court system, and the multitude of election officials in the states who did the administrative and non-political job of counting votes. Plus, there were people in the Justice Department who refused to go along with the "stolen election" claim. And there was Mike Pence. 

In the days immediately after the January 6 riot, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy and others gave voice to the American norm. The riot was reprehensible they said, in those moments. Yes, America has its extremes, but 94 out of 100 senators voted for the peaceful transfer of power. Democrats risked making a mountain out of a molehill. 

I understood it incorrectly. Trump was not as isolated as I understood. His plan wasn't hopeless in its outrageousness. 

Documents revealed this week by the January 6 committee show that the effort to overthrow the election was much bigger than Trump, a few whack-jobs lawyers, and a pillow entrepreneur. Multiple senior Republicans, including U.S. Senators and the White House Chief of Staff, were openly attempting to create a legal fiction of fraud that would allow the election to be overturned. Senator Mike Lee said he was making phone calls 14 hours a day "trying to figure out a path that I can persuasively defend.” 

They nearly found it, in something so simple--but consequential--as whether Vice President Michael Pence got into a car.

The Secret Service may have been part of a bigger Trump plan, or maybe their sole concern was Pence's safety. We don't know yet, and may never. The Vice President's Secret Service detail made repeated efforts to get Pence to leave the Capitol. They said Pence's ceremonial office wasn't safe enough, nor was the underground garage. Speaking to Tim Giebels, the head of his security detail, Pence reportedly said,

I’m not getting in the car, Tim. I trust you,Tim, but you’re not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not getting in the car.

Once Pence was in the car and in control of the driver, Pence understood he could have been driven anywhere and kept from returning. With Pence gone, the electoral votes legitimized by the election would likely not have been counted. That would be the excuse to turn the task over to Congress. Republicans controlled 27 delegations--minus the Wyoming delegation with Liz Cheney as its sole representative. The 26 GOP-led delegations would presumably vote their party, not the popular vote in their states. That would make Trump the winner of the election of the 50 states. There would have been a veneer of legality and constitutional process. As we know from the flurry of text messages that have been revealed this week, there was a wide array of Republicans eager to defend any process that awarded the election to Trump. 

Pence did his duty. Possibly he suspected the Secret Service was a participant in the attempted coup d'état. Possibly he simply knew that his duty-post was the Capitol. In any case, he didn't get into the car.