Former top Pence aide Marc Short testified before Jan. 6 grand jury

Andres Triay
Updated ·2 min read
2

Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, testified before a federal grand jury looking into the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, he said on CNN Monday night.

"I can confirm that I did receive a subpoena for the federal grand jury and I complied with that subpoena," he said. "Under the advice of counsel, I can't say much more than that."

His grand jury appearance on Friday in Washington, D.C., was first reported by ABC News.

Earlier this year, in January, Short appeared before the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 in response to a subpoena. In the June 16 public hearing, clips from that interview were played, including one in which Short said he believed that Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, agreed with him that Pence lacked the authority to overturn the results of the election by not certifying the Electoral College votes.

In the video testimony, Short said he thought Meadows understood this to be the case, but Short also told the committee that Meadows had told "so many people so many different things," that this wasn't exactly clear.

Short was with Pence in the Capitol on Jan. 6, as pro-Trump rioters overtook the building and the pair were forced  to evacuate to the safety of a loading dock underneath the Capitol complex. Former President Donald Trump had publicly and privately pressured Pence to reject the election results in certain states won by President Biden, but Pence issued a statement saying he could not do so.

He told CBS News' Catherine Herridge in an interview this month that during the 187 minutes of rioting at the Capitol, he talked to only one person in the White House, and that was Meadows. Herridge asked Short whether Meadows had given Pence any assurances that Trump had tried to mobilize help, but Short replied only that it was "not part of our conversation."

Arden Farhi and Kathryn Watson contributed to this report.

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