Mike Pence has offered a rebuke of his one-time boss Donald Trump, saying history will hold him accountable for his role in the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Pence, then the vice-president, was in the Capitol when thousands of Trump supporters breached the building in an attempt to stop Congress certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.
As the vice-president has the constitutional role of Senate president, Pence was presiding over what had always been the ceremonial task of approving the votes of the electoral college.
Throughout the siege, Trump sent several tweets, one calling on Republicans to “fight” and others making false claims of voter fraud. He also criticised Pence for certifying the results.
“President Trump was wrong,” Pence told journalists and their guests at the Gridiron dinner, an annual white-tie event in Washington DC.
“I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
Pence, who is considering a run for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, was whisked to safety by law enforcement during the attack.
He rarely addressed January 6 in the months afterwards, but has since upped his criticism of the rioters and the behaviour of Trump that day. In a memoir released in November he accused Trump of endangering his family.
“What happened that day was a disgrace,” Pence said on Saturday. “And it mocks decency to portray it any other way. For as long as I live, I will never, ever diminish the injuries sustained, the lives lost, or the heroism of law enforcement on that tragic day.”
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside business hours.
Pence’s remarks came a few days after the conservative television host Tucker Carlson aired highly selective, misleading security footage of the Capitol attack, in an attempt to claim that many of the rioters were “orderly”.
Carlson’s depiction was sharply criticised by Democrats and several high-profile Republicans in the Senate, though many other Republicans – particularly in the House of Representatives – shrugged off the episode.
