Just when you thought the House Select committee investigating Jan. 6 wasn’t getting testimony from the A++ players in the White House… think again.
ABC News reports that Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, was caught by an ABC News camera leaving the D.C. District Court Friday with his attorney, Emmet Flood, beside him. He had reportedly appeared before a federal grand jury investigating the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Sources told ABC News that Short appeared under subpoena.
Short would be the highest-ranking official from the White House under former President Donald Trump to appear before the grand jury.
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During the last public hearings from the House Select committee on July 21, an unnamed White House security official testified that during the Jan. 6 attack, Pence’s security detail was calling their families to “say goodbye.”
“The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives,” the security official testified. “There was a lot of yelling. There was a lot of very personal calls over the radio. It was disturbing. I don’t like talking about it. There were calls to say goodbye to family members.”
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The public hearing additionally revealed that while Pence’s security team was planning his escape, Trump was tweeting about Pence’s lack of “courage” to follow the former president’s request and stop the electoral count.
As Daily Kos’ Brandi Buchman reports, in the days and hours leading up to and during the insurrection, Trump badgered, berated, and bullied Pence to get him to stop the electoral count.
The vice president did not follow Trump’s edicts, and while the president did nothing to quell the violence on Jan. 6., Pence ordered deployments to help quash it.
As the public hearings revealed, at the end of a day that left countless law enforcement and others injured or dead, the nation bruised and scared, Congress running for their lives, and a gallows erected for his vice president, all Trump could muster were the words: "Mike Pence let me down.”
Trump and his followers proved on Jan. 6 how dangerously close they came to overturning our democracy. Help cancel Republican voter suppression with the power of your pen by clicking here and signing up to volunteer with Vote Forward, writing personalized letters to targeted voters urging them to exercise their right to vote this year.