The day before a crowd of supporters of President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff called Mr. Pence’s top secret service agent in his office. ‘west wing.
Chief of Staff Marc Short had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: the president would publicly turn against the vice president, and there could be a security risk for Mr. Pence because of that.
The harsh warning, the only time Mr. Short pointed to a security issue during his tenure as Mr. Pence, was recently discovered during this journalist’s investigation for a nearby book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of.” America ”, which will be published in October.
Mr. Short did not know what form this security risk could take, according to people familiar with the events. But after days of intensifying pressure from Mr. Trump on Mr. Pence to take the extraordinary step of intervening in the certification of the Electoral College count to prevent the defeat of Mr. Trump, Mr. Short seemed to have good cause for concern. The vice president’s refusal to continue erupted in an open and bitter rift between the two men at a time when the president was fueling the fury of his supporters who were running in Washington.
The notice of Mr. Shorts not previously reported reflected the remarkable tension in the west wing when Mr. Trump and a gang of allies, with their watches running out, are desperately looking for a way to cancel the election. Mr. Trump was agitated as his options were closed, and it became clear that he was failing in his latest effort to push his formerly complacent vice president to unilaterally reject the results of the vote in key states.
The warning also shows the concern of the highest levels of government about the danger that the planned actions and words of Mr. Trump could lead to violence on January 6th.
It is unclear what at least Mr. Giebels with the message. But when Mr. Trump attacked his second in command — and democratic norms — in an effort to cling to power, it would be prophetic.
One day after the notice of Mr. Short, more than 2,000 people, some singing “Hang Mike Pence,” stormed the Capitol as the vice president oversaw Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s certification of victory. Outside, angry Trump supporters had raised a mockery. After taking Mr. Pence to a safe place, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told his colleagues that Mr. Trump said that perhaps Mr. Pence should have been hanged.
To Mr. Short was asked about the conversation with Mr. Giebels during an interview with the House committee investigating the Capitol riots, said a person known for his appearance.
The new details of the weeks leading up to January 6 help to specify how Mr. Trump and his allies tried to intimidate Mr. Pence for accepting his unfounded theory that the Vice President had the authority to block Congressional certification of the results of the Electoral College: and how Mr. Pence’s refusal to do so would put him in danger.
A Secret Service spokeswoman did not respond to an email requesting comments. A spokesman for Mr. Pence declined to comment.
Mr. Pence said about five months after the attack on the Capitol, “There is almost no more anti-American idea than the idea that anyone can elect the American president.”
A few weeks after Election Day on November 3, 2020, Mr. Pence learned that some of Mr. Trump was discussing the possibility of January 6, 2021, established by statute as Electoral College Day. certification, as a potentially critical date in the efforts of Mr. Trump to stay in power. Soon, Mr. Pence asked his general counsel, Greg Jacob, to write a note explaining what his powers were during certification.
The note did not take a clear position, but Mr. Pence continued to investigate the matter, and finally concluded that the vice president had no authority to dictate the outcome.
But Mr. Pence and his team faced regular pressure from a cast of Trump supporters arguing that he had that power.
At the end of December, Mr. Pence traveled to Vail, Colorado, for a family vacation. While there, his aides received a request to meet with Sidney Powell, a lawyer who promoted some of the most outlandish conspiracy theories about voting machine defects, and to whom Mr. Trump wanted to lead the White House. ostensibly to investigate his false allegations of widespread election fraud.
The request to meet with Mrs. Powell was transmitted through Kelli Ward, the president of the Arizona Republican Party, according to a person known to the exchange. Ms. Ward had joined a lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas, asking a court to say that Mr. Pence could decide whether to accept or reject state voter lists during Col. Electoral law.
The lawsuit stated exactly what Mr. Pence argued that he had no power to do. Some of Pence’s advisers suspected that Ms. Powell would like to serve the vice president with legal documents related to the case.
Mr. Short opposed Ms. Ward’s support for the lawsuit. She told him they would not prosecute him if Mr. Trump was uneasy about it. (The proposed meeting with Ms. Powell never took place.) Ms. Powell and a spokeswoman for Ms. Ward did not respond to emails asking for comments.
There were other points of friction that left the Pence team on high alert for the pressure campaign. Mr. Meadows told Mr. Short that the president was denying approval of a transitional funding pot for Mr. Pence to establish a later office in the White House.
In the midst of the rising tension, Mr. Short contacted Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior adviser, between Christmas and New Year. Trump, and asked how he could turn off what was becoming an unsustainable confrontation between the Pence and Trump camps. Mr. Kushner dismissed the disclosure, saying he was embroiled in negotiations in the Middle East.
At one point, John McEntee, the head of the presidential staff, wrote a handwritten note circulating in the west wing that seemed to acknowledge that Mr. Pence did not think it could influence the outcome of the election.
However, with Mr. Trump failed in his other efforts to reverse the results, Mr. Pence continued to receive unsolicited notes arguing that he had the power to block the certification, including one from Mr. McEntee who looked far back in U.S. history to find precedents: “JEFFERSON USED HIS VP POSITION TO WIN.”
Mr. Trump also persisted, soon trying more direct means to pressure Mr. Pence. On January 4, 2021, he summoned the vice president to meet with John Eastman, the lawyer who had been especially influential in pressuring the case for the vice president to intervene. During the meeting, Mr. Eastman seemed to recognize that Mr. Pence did not have the power to arbitrarily resolve the election. However, he maintained that the vice president could send the results to the states to re-evaluate the results during a 10-day break.
In early January, Mr. Pence made it 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 continue to study the issue.
Mr. Trump tweeted on the morning of Jan. 5 that Mr. Pence could reject voters. He had tried to persuade some of his informal advisers outside the White House to go to the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, to seek a hearing to put pressure on Mr. Pence. That day, Mr. Trump spoke to Mr. Pence again and pressured him to do what the Vice President said he could not do.
It was that day that Mr. Short called Mr. Giebels in his office.
The next day, January 6, Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman addressed a crowd of thousands of Trump supporters at a rally in the Ellipse, near the White House, before the Electoral College certification began at 1 p.m. Eastman put public pressure on Mr. Pence to do what he wanted.
“You will never recover our country with weakness,” Trump told supporters. At another time, he said, “Mike Pence, I hope you stand up for the good of our Constitution and the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’ll be very disappointed in you. I’ll tell you right now. I’m not. listening to good stories “.
Mr. Trump, who repeatedly told his aides that he wanted to leave the Capitol when certification began, told the crowd that he would. But the Secret Service told him they could not protect him and he returned to the White House.
At around 1 p.m., Mr. Pence issued a memorandum making it clear that he did not agree with the president on his power to intervene in the certification. The note was not shared with the White House attorney in advance; trust between the offices was then broken.
Soon, Trump supporters swarmed the Capitol, entering through doors and windows and interrupting the countdown.
Mr. Giebels rushed Mr. Pence from the Senate chamber and took him to an underground loading dock. The vice president refused to get into a car waiting for him, despite repeated requests from Mr. Giebels, believing he would allow the mutineers and others to win a victory over a basic democratic process, his collaborators said.
Mr. Pence remained there for hours, until it was safe to return to the Senate Chamber, where he insisted on completing the certification process.
Its funding for the post-White House transition was approved shortly after Jan. 6.