Mike Pence has spent the past six months being part of a Donald Trump campaign which routinely insisted that Hillary Clinton’s fully legal use of email was somehow a disqualifying trait, even though she was given the legal all-clear time and again. But now that Trump and Pence have somehow won the election, the great irony is that Mike Pence is now suddenly embroiled in an email scandal of his own – and he’s arguing that he should be allowed to keep his work emails private, leading to the question of what he’s hiding.

Pence is suddenly fighting tooth and nail to prevent an email he received from a political ally from being entered into the public record. The backstory is that after President Obama moved forward with immigration reform in 2014, Pence – then and now the Governor of Indiana – joined some other Republican governors insuing him over it. But Pence hired outside counsel at taxpayer cost, and now according to the Indy Star he’s trying to bury any evidence that he was wasting taxpayer dollars by doing so.

There are two key storylines at play here. The first is that Mike Pence is trying to destroy the judicial branch’s ability to keep checks and balances on elected public officials, which has long been a core tenet of the United States system of democracy. The second is that Pence is trying to cover something up, and while we don’t know what he’s hiding, we do know it’s embarrassing or incriminating enough for him to wage legal war over it – even at a time when he’s focused on preparing to leave Indiana behind and assume the office of Vice President. It leads to the fair conclusion that whatever he’s hiding in that email could be enough to scandalize him to the point that he might have to drop out of the VP role before he’s even sworn in. If you enjoy Daily News Bin, consider making a contribution: