‘Are You Out of Your Effing Mind!?’ Trump Officials Recall ‘Crazy’ Plot For Pence to Just Declare Trump President

At Thursday’s House Jan. 6 Select Committee hearing, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) showed several videos of Trump administration officials recounting their reactions to Donald Trump‘s plan for Mike Pence to declare him president — and they were not positive ones.

After senior counsel John Wood asked former Pence attorney Greg Jacob about the legality and constitutionality of Trump’s plan to have Pence keep him in power despite the 2020 vote, Aguilar noted to Jacob, “you weren’t the only one who knew that the legal theory was wrong, though.”

“Here is what various advisers to the president thought about that theory,” he said, introducing the series of clips starting with Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short.

Short said in his deposition that Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows “agreed” that this was not within the scope of Pence’s authority, and said so several times before January 6.

The second clip featured former Trump advisor Jason Miller, who told the committee in his deposition that former White House counsel Pat Cipollone thought Trump’s plan was “nutty” and said so to John Eastman.

“The way it was communicated to me it was that Pat Cipollone thought that the idea was nutty and had at one point confronted Eastman basically with the same sentiment,” said Miller.

A second clip of Short showed him also stating for the record that Cipollone “concurred” that Trump’s plan did not represent any legal or constitutional reality.

Former White House attorney Eric Herschmann said that Trump and Eastman’s argument made “no sense.”

“It made no sense to me that in all the protections that were built into the Constitution for a president to get elected and steps that had to be taken, that the power to choose the next president would be sitting with the vice president,” said Herschmann.

Another clip of Jason Miller showed him being asked what Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark or Trump campaign attorney Matthew Morgan “thought about that, Mr. Eastman’s advice?”

“Yeah, they thought he was crazy,” said Miller.

Ask if he knew whether either had ever “expressed an opinion” on the theory that Pence had the authority Eastman was suggesting, Do you know if they ever expressed an opinion on whether they thought the vice president had the power that John, he’s been said he did, Miller answered that he knows “for a fact” that he heard them both “say that his theory was crazy” prior to January 6th to “anyone who would listen.”

In another clip from Herschmann’s deposition, he was asked about prior interactions with Eastman.

“He described for me what he thought the ambiguity was in the statute, and he was walking through it at that time. And I said, hold on a second, I want to understand what you’re saying. You’re saying that you believe the vice president acting as president of the Senate can be the sole decision-maker as to, under your theory, who becomes the next President of the United States?” said Herschmann. “And he said, ‘yes.'”

“I said, Are you out of your effin’ mind? Right? And that was pretty blunt,” Herschmann testified. “I said, You’re completely crazy.”

“I said, ‘You’re going to turn around and tell 78 plus million people in this country that your theory is this is how you’re going to invalidate their votes, because you think the election was stolen?’ I said, ‘They’re not going to tolerate that. You’re going to cause riots in the streets,'” said Herschmann. “And he said words to the effect of, there’s been violence in the history of our country or to protect the democracy or protect the republic.”

Find all of Mediaite’s hearing coverage here.

Watch the clip above, via Fox News.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com