Mike Pence: When is the former US vice president speaking and what can we expect?

Donald Trump continues to insist former deputy could have overturned 2020 presidential election

Mike Pence (AP)

Former Vice President Mike Pence, now bitterly estranged from Donald Trump, is due to address the conservative Federalist Society’s eighth annual Florida Chapters Conference on Friday, 4 February on the topic of “constitutional principles and the rule of law”.

It is hoped that Mr Pence will also address some of his former boss’s recent criticisms when he speaks at the two-day event, taking place at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort in Lake Buena Vista in Mr Trump’s adopted home state.

Also speaking at the gathering of right-leaning lawyers are US Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Both Mr Pence and Mr DeSantis have been tipped to seek the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential race, as has Mr Trump, who continues to fire out idiosyncratic press releases from the bowels of his palatial Mar-a-Lago resort in the Sunshine State, having been deprived of his Twitter account since stoking the US Capitol riot a little over a year ago.

In one of his most recent crackpot dispatches, the 45th president once more blamed his former deputy for refusing to weaponise his entirely ceremonial role at the joint-session of Congress taking place on 6 January 2021, which was intended to formally certify the results of the previous November’s election.

Mr Trump lost the electoral vote to Democrat Joe Biden by 306 to 232 and the popular vote by 81.3m to 74.2m but immediately and baselessly insisted the contest was “rigged” in a vast nationwide conspiracy orchestrated by his opponents, a fallacy he has kept up ever since.

The lie inspired members of the “Stop the Steal” movement among his supporters to descend on Washington, DC, and storm the legislative complex on 6 January in protest, an attempted coup that left five people dead and attracted condemnation at home and abroad.

Mr Trump nevertheless insists Mr Pence “could have overturned the election” that fateful day by rejecting states’ results and, in a subsequent statement, implored the House of Representatives inquiry currently investigating the riot to interview the former VP and find out “why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval, in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so”.

The president whipped up the crowd that day into such a frenzy that a makeshift gallows was erected near the Capitol as pro-Trump agitators, some of them armed, chanted: “Hang Mike Pence”.

The latter has since said that he and the former president will “never see eye-to-eye” on the events of that day, which appears to be putting it extremely mildly indeed.

Trump and Pence in happier times (Getty)

Marc Short and Greg Jacob, Mr Pence’s former chief of staff and general counsel respectively, have already spoken to the House panel.

Whether Mr Pence will join them or overtly address Mr Trump’s latest attacks in Florida remains unknown but he faces a need to reconcile his recent past with the Republican Party’s future if he is to run for the White House himself in 2024.

“He has to appeal to the Trump wing of the party because they’re rabid and without them he can’t proceed forward, but they won’t think he’s loyal,” a former Trump administration official told The Hill.

“But he also has to appeal to another larger segment of the Republican Party that kind of wants to move beyond Trump and move to a different phase. Trying to bridge both sides of that divide can end up tanking a person’s chances.”