Marc Short Testifies Before Jan. 6 Grand Jury

He, Greg Jacob are highest-ranking administration officials to comply with DOJ
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 26, 2022 8:24 AM CDT
Top Pence Aides Testify Before Jan. 6 Grand Jury
Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, leaves a meeting with his former boss and fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Wednesday, July 20, 2022.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Two top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence have testified in front of a federal grand jury in Washington investigating Jan. 6, 2021. Marc Short, Pence's former chief of staff, and Greg Jacob, his former counsel, appeared before the grand jury last week, making them the highest-ranking officials in the Trump administration known to cooperate in the Justice Department’s inquiry, the New York Times reports. The Wall Street Journal reports both testified under subpoena. Their testimony remains under wraps.

Both previously testified before the House select committee about former President Trump's plan to pressure Pence into interfering in the certification of Electoral College votes so as to allow him to remain in office. Both attended a Jan. 4 meeting with Trump and Pence in the Oval Office in which the lawyer John Eastman tried to convince Pence to act as Trump wished, per the Times. In video testimony shown at a hearing of the House select committee in June, Jacob said Eastman admitted in front of Trump that the plan was illegal, in violation of the Electoral Count Act, and would be overruled by the Supreme Court in a 9-0 decision.

Jacob said Pence replied that there was "no way" the planned action was "justifiable," per the Times. Days later, when Pence refused to act, Trump's supporters descended on the Capitol. "If the mob had gotten closer to the vice president, I do think there would have been a massacre in the Capitol that day," Short tells ABC News, confirming his appearance before the grand jury. Earlier this year, a federal jury found Trump and Eastman "more likely than not" committed federal crimes with their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. (Federal agents seized Eastman's cellphone last month.)

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