Mike Pence is so scared of the Trump-Russia investigation, he now has a criminal defense fund

| 10:32 pm EDT June 15, 2017
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I have to admit, I missed it at the time just like everyone else did. Back when Mike Pence established his own fundraising PAC a few weeks ago, I figured either he was planning to use it to fund congressional Republican candidates in 2018, or he was planning to run for President himself in 2020. It seemed like a bad sign for Donald Trump. But now it turns out to have been a bad sign for Mike Pence himself, because of what he’s truly been raising money for.

Mike Pence hired an attorney to represent himself in the Trump-Russia scandal, a startling development which points to just how many people in the Trump administration may be targeted by the Special Counsel investigation, according to a Washington Post report (link). Pence has a relatively small net worth, and the government can’t pay his personal legal bills. So he has to come up with that money somehow.

It was Lawrence O’Donnell who connected the dots during his MSNBC show this evening. That same WaPo report says that Mike Pence began searching for an appropriate attorney to represent him in the Trump-Russia scandal a few weeks ago, at the same time he established the fundraising PAC. So in light of this new information, and O’Donnell putting it together, it’s rather obvious that Pence’s PAC is a de facto criminal defense fund for himself.

This tells you just how scared Mike Pence is of the Trump-Russia investigation. He doesn’t expect to merely give a deposition or two, and end up paying his attorney for a few billable hours. He’s expecting to rack up legal bills so massive that he needs PAC donors to cover his costs. And that means Pence expects to be a major target of the investigation, in a prolonged fashion. Mike Pence knows what he did or didn’t do wrong, so this speaks volumes.