The former White House Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short, testified before a federal grand jury investigating the January 6 insurrection last week.
“Marc Short was caught by an ABC News camera departing D.C. District Court on Friday alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood,” ABC News reports Monday afternoon. “Short appeared under subpoena, sources said.”
Short is now believed to be the highest-ranking Trump administration official to testify before the grand jury.
Former U.S Attorney Barb McQuade, now a law professor and well-known NBC News/MSNBC legal analyst, called it “inner circle stuff.”
Attorney George Conway, spouse to former Trump senior advisor Kellyanne Conway, offered up a one-word response: “Huge.”
Former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman, now the co-editor-in-chief of Just Security weighed in, saying: “Looks like a significant development.”
Short’s “appearance doesn’t fit neatly with prior known scope of probe,” he adds.
After the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack wrapped up its televised public hearings last week even more pressure has been put on Attorney General Merrick Garland to hold accountable not only the “foot soldiers” who attacked the U.S. Capitol and American democracy, but those responsible for inciting the insurrection and planning the events that led to it.
“There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, what’s it not doing, what our theories are and what our theories aren’t, and there will continue to be that speculation,” Attorney General Garland said at a press briefing last week., ABC News adds. “We have to hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election, and we must do it in a way filled with integrity and professionalism.”
The former Vice President was scheduled to deliver a speech Monday night at the right wing Heritage Foundation, but it has been postponed “due to unexpected severe weather and flight delays,” New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi reports.