One of the senior-most officials in former Vice President Mike Pence’s world—his ex-chief of staff Marc Short—has met with investigators on the Jan. 6 committee for a closed-door deposition and another Pence official, Greg Jacob, has since followed suit. 

Short was by Pence’s side when the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol unfolded last year and he reportedly sat for the meeting with the select committee last Wednesday, according to CNN. It is unclear if Short was formally subpoenaed for this appearance but it was reported that he agreed to cooperate with the probe voluntarily in December under what was first described as a “friendly subpoena.”

A committee spokesperson declined to comment on either appearance by Short or Jacob when reached Tuesday. 

Greg Jacob, once Pence’s general counsel, was spotted by an eagle-eyed CNN reporter as he left a room used for committee meetings and witness interviews at the Capitol on Tuesday. 

Investigators are seeking Short and Jacob’s testimony because, in addition to any insights they could provide from their time with the vice president on Jan. 6, both men were also present days before the attack at a White House meeting involving John Eastman, the conservative attorney who authored two legal memos laying out a scheme that would pressure Pence to overturn the election results. 

The White House reportedly called Eastman on Jan. 3 and asked him to fly to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with Pence, Short, and Jacob. Eastman obliged and at the first meeting, The New York Times reported, Pence’s team listened to Eastman explain his strategy. But the next day, when it came time for Eastman to present to Trump and Pence, Jacob and Short were reportedly out of the meeting altogether. 

Eastman told the Times that during the meeting with Trump, as he discussed his strategy to have the veep overrule already-certified votes, Pence turned to him and asked: “Do you think I have such power?”

Jacob’s contact with Eastman has also drawn scrutiny because of an irate email he received from the attorney while the rioters were actively breaching the complex and brutalizing police officers. 

“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman wrote. 

As Eastman railed at Jacob, Pence had only just been ferried to a secure location away from rioters marauding through the Capitol as some of them chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.” 

Short has reportedly given the committee a series of documents already, though the extent or details of which are not yet known publicly in their entirety. He was responsible, however, for providing the committee with a memo that was allegedly given to Pence by Johnny McEntee, Trump’s onetime body man-turned-White House director of presidential personnel.

The memo, first made public by ABC’s Jonathan Karl last year, conflated legal theory and history in one fell swoop. McEntee incorrectly suggested that in 1801, Thomas Jefferson declared himself the winner of the presidency after he chose to ignore issues with ballots in Georgia.

McEntee allegedly sent that message to Pence, and said it “proves that the VP has, at minimum, a substantial discretion to address issues with the electoral process.” 

But McEntee got the story wrong. Jefferson accepted votes from Georgia because he overwhelmingly won the state and further, Jefferson did not discard any votes from other states, unlike what was being advocated to Pence. 

Short and Jacob could also have insights into the “alternate electors” scheme that unfolded openly in the run-up to the certification. 

Pence has not yet indicated whether he will sit for the committee as a witness, directly. Instead it has been reported that Pence is content to have his aides testify for him by proxy. 

The former vice president remains in a difficult spot: Trump is still promoting the false claim that Pence had the power to overturn the election results. 

Trump has anchored this assertion to ongoing efforts in Congress to reform the Electoral Count Act which is often critiqued by Democrats and Republicans alike as ambiguous. 

Trump, true to form, has painted these reform efforts in a way that suits his conspiracies about the 2020 election.  

‘What they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!” Trump said in a statement Sunday. 

That was basically identical to the bunk theory put forward in the Eastman memos. 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the Jan. 6. committee and California Democrat, responded to Trump’s ravings, saying the reason Congress was reviewing the Electoral Count Act was because of its age—its been around since 1887 without much amending—and because fellow “colleagues in the House had tried to exploit ambiguities in it.” 

“But frankly, I think the role of the vice president will remain unchanged,” she said. “I guess the former president is saying that the vice president gets to choose the next president, in which case, Kamala Harris will be presiding at the counting of the votes and I guess he’s saying she gets to choose who the next president is. That’s clear to me, not what the Constitution provides for.”

“He must be kidding,” she added.