Awkward
Mike Pence Gets Entangled in Pizzagate
The VP-elect had a hard time dodging Jake Tapper’s queries as to why one of the chief promoters of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory was being given White House security clearance.
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast
Today on CNN, Pizzagate became a problem for Mike Pence.
The vice president-elect sat down with Jake Tapper at the top of his 4 p.m. show on CNN, and faced a grilling about the role that Michael G. Flynn—the son of Trump’s national security advisor pick, Gen. Michael Flynn—played on the president’s transition team. Flynn the Younger recently gave credence to the baseless Pizzagate conspiracy theory—a theory that incited one North Carolina man to walk into a D.C. pizzeria with two guns. The man discharged one of his weapons, but didn’t hurt anyone. And that near-catastrophe has many—including Tapper—wondering why one of the people pushing Pizzagate was part of the team helping prepare Donald Trump to take over the White House.
Pence had trouble explaining.
“His son was helping him a bit with scheduling and administrative items,” Pence said. “But that’s no longer the case.”
Then Tapper asked if Pence knew the transition team, which he chairs, had requested a security clearance for Flynn’s son. Pence tried not to answer. The situation with Flynn’s son was a “distraction,” he said, so the transition team made the right decision by jettisoning him.
“I want to move on to other issues, but I am afraid I didn’t get an answer,” Tapper replied. “Which is, were you aware that the transition team had put in for a security clearance for Michael Flynn Jr.?”
“I have worked closely with Gen. Flynn,” Pence replied. “We’ve met on many occasions. I have never—I have never seen his son present for any of those meetings.”
Tapper kept pushing back: Did or didn’t Pence know that someone on the transition team tried to get a security clearance for Flynn’s son?
“What I can tell you is that, in talking with Gen. Flynn today, he made me aware his son was assisting in scheduling meetings,” Pence said.
“You put in for the security clearance,” Tapper said.
“What was needed in that regard was taking place,” Pence replied. “But that’s no longer the case.”
It’s no surprise Pence wouldn’t want to take responsibility for Michael G. Flynn’s role in the Trump transition. Besides pushing the Pizzagate nonsense, Flynn has tweeted that people of color only voted for Obama because he’s black, and he’s also promoted the 9/11 truth site InfoWars, as CNN has documented.