The Secret Service escorted former Vice President Mike Pence to an underground loading dock during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, where he waited with his wife and daughter for around five hours.
During a Monday trial for New Mexico county commissioner Couy Griffin, Secret Service inspector Lanelle Hawa testified that Pence was evacuated from the Senate chamber around 2:26 p.m. and taken to a loading dock underneath the Senate plaza, The Washington Post reported.
Griffin, the second Jan. 6 rioter to head to trial and founder of “Cowboys for Trump,” faces charges of disorderly conduct and entering and remaining in a restricted building. At trial, prosecutors are trying to prove whether Griffin knowingly and willfully trespassed when a pro-President Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and disrupted the certification of the 2020 election.
Griffin’s defense team was able to reveal Pence’s location during the riot despite protests from the Justice Department, which wanted to keep that information confidential, the Post reports. Prosecutors argued that the revelation could endanger other protectees and be a national security concern.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden said the defense had a right to challenge evidence from prosecutors, adding he doesn’t “think the government is entitled to some Secret Service exception or sensitive information exception from proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” the Post reported.
The news of Pence’s whereabouts confirms reports from ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, who in November told Stephen Colbert with “The Late Show” that Pence was “hidden away in the bowels of the Capitol,” according to photographs.
“He refused to leave, he wanted to stay there,” Karl, who was promoting his book “Betrayal” at the time, said. “I saw all the photographs, and by the way it is wild to see he was in a loading dock in an underground parking garage beneath the Capitol complex. No place to sit, no desk, no chairs … this is the vice president of the United States.”
Griffin requested a bench trial with McFadden, a Trump-appointed judge, rather than face a trial by jury.
Prosecutors say the 48-year-old county commissioner posted on social media that he “climbed up on top of the Capitol building and … had a first row seat” during the rioting.
They also accused him of leading a speech and a prayer during the rioting.