Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin says Mike Pence was 'a hero' and a 'constitutional patriot' on January 6

• Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said former Vice President Mike Pence was a "hero" on January 6.
• "On that day, he was a constitutional patriot," he said of Pence's role in certifying the election.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and member of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, said former Vice President Mike Pence was a "hero" on January 6 for his role in certifying the 2020 presidential election.

"On that day, he was a hero," Raskin told CBS News in an interview published Monday. "And this is a guy who, I felt, went along with way too much during the Trump administration. But on that day, he was a constitutional patriot."

Raskin, a longtime constitutional law professor, last year led former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial on charges of inciting the Capitol riot.

Trump aggressively pressured Pence, both publicly and privately, to reject the Electoral College vote and overturn the election. Some of the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol in an effort to halt Congress' certification process called for Pence's execution, chanting "hang Mike Pence." Meanwhile, Trump tweeted that Pence lacked the "courage" to "protect our Country and our Constitution."

Pence has since called the idea that he could overturn the election "un-American" and said he might never "see eye to eye" with Trump on the matter. But over the past year, the former vice president has aligned himself closely with Trump, promoted misinformation about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and downplayed the Capitol riot. He's minimized the attack as simply "one day in January" and accused the media of attempting to "demean" Trump supporters by covering the failed insurrection.

"I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administration's failed agenda by focusing on one day in January," Pence told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an October interview.

Raskin has previously said that Pence's role on January 6 is a central issue for the House committee's investigation, which is ongoing.

"It's an important part of the historical record to determine how close Trump actually came to achieving his scheme of getting Pence to declare unilateral power to reject Electoral College votes," Raskin told The Washington Post in October.