Mike Pence's chief of staff alerted the Secret Service that Trump would publicly attack Pence on Jan. 5, 2021: report
- Former VP Mike Pence's chief of staff warned the Secret Service of threats ahead of January 6.
- It was the only security alert he ever gave the agency, according to The New York Times.
Marc Short, the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence and an early member of his 2024 presidential campaign in-waiting, warned the Secret Service that former President Donald Trump was about to publicly attack his boss the day before the January 6 insurrection.
The new reporting from The New York Times — part of Maggie Haberman's upcoming book "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America" — describes Short as unsure of the specific nature of the threat. But Short was concerned that Trump's efforts to pressure Pence into halting the official certification of election results could pose a security threat to Pence, multiple sources involved told Haberman.
On January 5, Trump tweeted a call for Pence to reject the results and, according to the new reporting from the Times, tried convincing some of his informal advisors to go up to the VP's residence at the Naval Observatory to pressure him.
After Trump spoke with Pence and once again pushed him to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power, Short called Pence's lead Secret Service agent, Tim Giebels, to his office and warned him that Trump would publicly attack Pence.
During the storming of the Capitol, rioters chanted "hang Mike Pence," and Secret Service officers quickly escorted Pence to an undisclosed secure location.
Ahead of Short's alert to the agency — which declined to comment for the Times story, as did a spokesperson for Pence — Trump officials were ratcheting up the pressure for the VP's team to help overturn the election results.
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told Short that Trump decided to withhold funding for a post-White House office for Pence.
As part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Insider, the names and salaries of Trump and Pence post-White House staffers were disclosed for the first time.
Pence also received a request to meet with former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell while on vacation in Vail, Colorado, according to the report, which did not specify whether the meeting ever materialized.
Amid the building tensions, Short reached out to top Trump aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner to ask "how he could defuse what was becoming an untenable clash between the Pence and Trump camps," according to the Times.
Kushner didn't take him up on the request, telling Short he was busy with negotiations in the Middle East, according to the report. Kushner would later declare an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite no formal peace agreement and continued killings, with Israeli forces fatally shooting two Palestinians earlier this week.