The filing in the Trump case details the remarkable split with Pence over rejection of the 2020 election defeat

WASHINGTON— Days before rioters marched through the halls of the US Capitol threatening to “hang Mike Pence”, Donald Trump told his vice president that people would “hate your guts” and “think you’re stupid” if he did fail to prevent the 2020 election certification.

The New Year’s warning was not the first time Trump pressured Pence to overturn the election results. It wasn’t the last time either. As part of the so-called “Operation Pence Card,” Trump spent weeks publicly and privately urging his vice president to help him stay in power after his defeat.

“You’re too honest,” Trump berated his vice president in that morning call on January 1st.

After they hung up, the president reminded his followers on Twitter to come to Washington for the “HUGE protest” just days away – the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol.

The exchange between the president and his vice president, detailed in special counsel Jack Smith’s court filing this week, shows the extraordinary lengths to which Trump went to overturn the 2020 election, even as it lays the foundation for this year’s campaign to challenge if he loses.

Pence is no longer at Trump’s side and has refused to support the Republican nominee’s bid to return to the White House. Trump and his new vice presidential candidate JD Vance are still refusing to accept the 2020 election results that gave Joe Biden the presidency.

In a crucial moment during this week’s debate between Vance and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, Vance declined to say whether he accepted the results of the last election. In a sharp retort, Walz said, “That’s why Mike Pence is not on this stage.”

Much of the special counsel’s files deal with the tumultuous months after the November election, when Trump – surrounded by allies including Steve Bannon, his former campaign manager and podcast host who is now in prison after a contempt of congressional conviction – ordered his team to fight to keep him in office. The former president, who was charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, called the new lawsuit “election interference” and asked that the case be dismissed.

The day after the election, Trump called on Pence to investigate allegations of voter fraud in states they previously won when they first ran for office together in 2016.

“Just look at everything and let me know what you think,” Pence recalled of her Nov. 4 call. “But he told me the campaign would fight, go to court and object.”

This weekend, as Biden was projected to win, Pence tried to “encourage” Trump “as a friend” to reflect on all he had accomplished.

“You breathed new life into a dying party,” Pence told Trump on November 7.

As the days went by, the Trump campaign provided what Pence called a “sober and somewhat pessimistic report” on the state of the campaigns they were running.

“Pence gradually and gently attempted to persuade defendant to accept the lawful election results, even if it meant they lost,” the court filing said.

“Don’t admit, but recognize that the trial is over,” Pence told his defeated vice president on Nov. 12.

Four days later, at a private luncheon, Pence encouraged the president to accept the results and run again in four years. “I don’t know, 2024 is so far away,” Trump responded, according to the filing.

There was a postponement at the beginning of December. Trump began thinking about Congress’ role in the electoral process.

“For the first time, he mentioned to Pence the possibility of challenging the election results in the House of Representatives,” the filing said, citing a Dec. 5 phone call.

It was the beginning of an intensifying public and private campaign orchestrated by Trump that would pile pressure on Pence in the coming weeks and ultimately raise concerns about his own safety. Some details are described in Pence’s own book, “So Help Me God.”

Trump and his team of outside lawyers led by Rudy Giuliani “developed a new plan” after all legal challenges failed. She focused on seven states that Trump lost, relying on a proposal from law professor John Eastman to create alternative lists of voters that would claim the losing president actually won.

And they turned their attention to Pence.

They falsely claimed that Pence, in his ministerial role as president of the Senate, could decide on Jan. 6 which lists of voters he wanted to elect or send both back to the states for reconsideration, prosecutors said.

“They lied to Pence by telling him that there was significant campaign fraud and concealed the orchestration of the scheme,” the prosecutor wrote. “And they lied to the public and falsely claimed that Pence had the authority to reject electoral votes during the certification process.”

Members of Trump’s campaign called the plan “crazy” and disparagingly referred to the organizers as characters from the “Star Wars bar.”

Trump told Pence about his plans for a Jan. 6 rally and expressed that it would be a “big day,” the filing said.

As they had lunch together a few days later, on December 21, Pence again encouraged Trump to view the election not as a loss but “just a break.”

Pence told the president that Trump should “take a bow” if they were still falling short “after we have exhausted all legal processes in the courts and in Congress.”

But Trump didn’t back down. On Dec. 23, Trump retweeted “Operation Pence Card” and began “directly and repeatedly pressuring Pence,” prosecutors said, and proceeded to “call on” his supporters to rally in Washington.

When Pence called the president on Christmas Day to wish him a Merry Christmas, Trump told him that he could decide on the certification during his term as president of Congress.

“You know, I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome,” Pence said.

As January 6 approached, Trump’s days became increasingly desperate. The president attacked his vice president during the New Year’s morning phone call. The next day, he asked Georgia’s secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” that could prove he had won the election in that state. He later told Pence that a senator would request a 10-day delay in certification during the proceedings. “You can make the decision,” Trump told Pence.

Pence took five pages of contemporaneous notes during a meeting at the White House as Trump directed his team to outline the plan for Pence, saying: “If there is fraud, the rules change.”

Pence told them: “I don’t think that argument works.”

“The conspirators were undeterred,” the prosecutor wrote, and Trump continued to put public pressure on Pence.

“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us,” Trump said at a rally in Georgia.

At a private meeting in the Oval Office on January 5, the defeated president again told his vice president: “I think you have the power to revoke certification.”

When Pence remained unmoved, Trump threatened to publicly criticize him: “I have to say, you have done a great disservice.”

This concerns Pence, the prosecutor wrote, and the vice president’s intelligence department has been alerted.

Later that evening, Trump, along with his lawyers, called Pence to once again raise the issue of returning voters to the states. Trump called Pence again late that evening: “You have to be tough tomorrow.”

The next morning, January 6, Trump called Pence again before taking the rally stage.

When Pence again rejected the request, the prosecutor wrote, Trump was outraged.

Trump again included remarks targeting Pence in his speech. And Trump sent a crowd of angry supporters to the Capitol.

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.