PENCE AIDE WARNED OF SECURITY RISK
Former VP’s chief of staff had concerns before Capitol riot
The day before a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff called Pence’s lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office.
The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Pence because of it.
The stark warning — the only time Short flagged a security concern during his tenure as Pence’s top aide — was uncovered recently during research by this reporter for an upcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” to be published in October.
Short did not know what form such a security risk might take, according to people familiar with the events. But after days of intensifying pressure from Trump on Pence to take the extraordinary step of intervening in the certification of the Electoral College count to forestall Trump’s defeat, Short seemed to have good reason for concern. The vice president’s refusal to go along was exploding into an open and bitter breach between the two men at a time when the president was stoking the fury of his supporters who were streaming into Washington.
It is unclear what, if anything, Giebels did with the warning. But as Trump attacked his second in command — and democratic norms — in an effort to cling to power, it would prove prophetic.
A day after Short’s warning, more than 2,000 people — some chanting “Hang Mike Pence” — stormed the Capitol as the vice president was overseeing the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Outside, angry Trump supporters had erected a mock gallows. After Pence was hustled to safety, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, is reported to have told colleagues that Trump said that perhaps Pence should have been hanged.
New details from the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 help to flesh out how Trump and his allies sought to intimidate Pence into accepting their baseless theory that the vice president had the authority to block congressional certification of the Electoral College results — and how Pence’s refusal to do so would lead him to peril.
A spokesperson for the Secret Service did not respond to an email seeking comment. A spokesperson for Pence declined to comment.
A few weeks after Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020, aides to Pence learned that some in Trump’s loose network of advisers were discussing the possibility of Jan. 6, 2021 — set under statute as the day of the Electoral College certification — as a potentially critical date in Trump’s efforts to stay in power. Soon, Pence asked his general counsel, Greg Jacob, to write a memo explaining what his powers were during the certification.
The memo did not take a clear position, but Pence’s advisers continued to research the issue, ultimately concluding that the vice president had no authority to dictate the outcome.
Pence and his team were faced with regular pressure from a cast of Trump supporters arguing that he did have such power.
Trump also persisted, soon trying more direct means of pressuring Pence. On Jan. 4, 2021, he summoned the vice president to meet with John Eastman, the lawyer who had been especially influential in pressing the case that the vice president could intervene. During the meeting, Eastman appeared to acknowledge that Pence did not have the power to arbitrarily settle the election. Still, he maintained that the vice president could send the results back to states to reevaluate the results over a 10-day recess.
By early January, Pence made clear to Trump that he did not believe he had the power to do what the president wanted, but he also indicated that he would keep studying the issue.
Trump tweeted on the morning of Jan. 5 that Pence could reject electors.
It was that day that Short called Giebels to his office.
The next day, Jan. 6, Trump and Eastman addressed a crowd of thousands of Trump supporters at a rally near the White House, before the start of the Electoral College certification. Trump and Eastman both applied public pressure on Pence to do what they wanted.
“You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” Trump told his supporters. At another point, he said, “Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country.”
Trump, who repeatedly told aides he wanted to march to the Capitol as the certification was beginning, told the crowd that he would do so. But the Secret Service told him it could not protect him, and he returned to the White House.
At about 1 p.m., Pence released a memo making clear that he disagreed with the president about his power to intervene in the certification.
Soon, Trump’s supporters swarmed the Capitol, breaking in through doors and windows and disrupting the count. Giebels rushed Pence from the Senate chamber and took him to an underground loading dock.
Pence stayed there for hours, until it was safe to return to the Senate chamber, where he insisted on finishing the certification process.