Former President Donald Trump has reportedly filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn a judge's order that former Vice President Mike Pence testify before a federal grand jury investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump's attorneys have claimed executive privilege should shield testimony from Pence and others in essentially all investigations concerning the ex-president, an assertion courts have consistently rejected. This move comes after earlier attempts to keep aides from testifying have repeatedly failed. It is currently unclear when Pence might appear before the grand jury.
This reported decision to appeal is under seal and a Trump spokesman has not immediately responded to a request for comment from Forbes. Meanwhile, Trump's legal troubles have been growing for years but reached a new peak last week when he was placed under arrest in Manhattan on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump pleaded not guilty in the case, which centers on payments made to former fixer Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign, in an alleged attempt to keep her from publicly disclosing an affair she claimed to have had with Trump years earlier.
State prosecutors in New York argue the payments to Cohen for so-called legal services actually served as reimbursement for the alleged hush money payment to Daniels. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the two federal criminal probes involving Trump, related to January 6 and whether he knowingly brought classified records to Mar-A-Lago after leaving the White House, while Trump also faces a criminal probe in Georgia for his effort to overturn the 2020 election results, criminal investigations in New York for allegedly lying about property valuations, and a $250 million civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged financial misconduct, among other legal woes. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has blasted the investigations as politically motivated "witch hunts."