Republic saved by Jesus

That was the message conveyed by multiple witnesses on the third day of the hearings of the House 1/6 Committee.  It wasn’t Pence who saved the country from Donald Trump and his marauding horde.  It was Jesus…or maybe it was a Bible verse about Daniel when he was “second in command of Babylon, a pagan city,” as the Vice President’s counsel, Greg Jacob, recounted the verse, Daniel 6, to the committee this afternoon.  Jacob said the Bible “was where I went,” while he and Pence were in the “secure location” in the basement of the Capitol, and “it gave me great comfort.” 

Or maybe it was at the start of the day on January 6, when the Vice President and his counsel knelt together in prayer before departing for the White House, where Pence would get yelled at one last time and called a “pussy” by President Trump.  Maybe that sustained him for a while.  Later, Pence would tell his counsel, “I can’t wait to go to heaven and meet the framers, and tell them the work that you did in putting together our Constitution is a work of genius.”

You know the work of genius Pence is talking about:  the one that lays out the duties of the Vice President on the day the votes of the Electoral College are certified.

But who knows?  It could have been a prayer said on January 6 by J. Michael Luttig, the famed conservative jurist, who told the committee that he probably said the same prayer Pence said and assumed that “we pray to the same God.”  

How convenient.

Or maybe it was 2 Timothy 4:7, a verse texted to the Vice President by his chief of staff, Marc Short, after they left the Capitol at 3:50 a.m. on the morning of January 7.  The verse reads, “I fought the good fight, I’ve finished the race, I’ve kept the faith.”

Finished the race?  You want to know who’s not finished?  Donald Trump.  He’s out there at his rallies still spreading the same lies that landed Pence and Short and Jacob and the entire Congress of the United States in the hot water they found themselves in on January 6, as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers – both of which are fond of quoting the Bible in support of their beliefs in nifty stuff like white supremacy and the right to bear arms – threatened Pence’s life and vowed to scalp Nancy Pelosi and “find” Gerald Nadler and other members of the Democratic leadership.

If Pence really wants to finish the race, maybe he should put down his Bible and pick up a phone and call Chairman Bennie Thompson and volunteer to come in and testify before the House 1/6 Committee and tell them everything we haven’t heard about the private words Trump said to Pence in the days leading up to January 6.  Curious minds want to know what Donald Trump’s groveling Vice President thinks about his fearless leader these days and whether he intends to vote for Trump if he is the party’s nominee come November of 2024. 

Maybe he can find a verse in the Bible that will tell him how he can handle the questions the 1/6 Committee, and all the rest of us, have for him after a hangman’s noose was strung up on the afternoon of January 6 with his name on it.  I, personally, would like to know if it disappointed Pence that Trump’s followers erected a gallows for him on the steps of the Capitol and not a cross.

What do you want to bet the Bible has a verse to deal with that, too.