Former Pence chief counsel Greg Jacob is reportedly scheduled to testify during the Jan. 6 Select Committee’s public hearing on June 16, next Thursday, regarding his involvement in pushing back against then-President Trump and his allies’ election-theft pressure campaign, according to Politico.
Jacob’s upcoming testimony will be under subpoena, a person familiar with the committee’s schedule told Politico. News of Jacob’s scheduled testimony comes a week after CNN reported on the panel’s invitations to Jacob and other former Pence aides to testify during public hearings. Former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig, who worked with Pence around Jan. 6, and former Pence chief of staff Marc Short are reportedly expected to appear as witnesses, the Washington Post reported.
Jacob reportedly played a key role in rebuffing conservative attorney John Eastman’s scheme to try to convince Pence to delay the count of the Electoral College votes. Eastman had been a driving force behind the plot to have Pence throw out Biden’s electors and replace them with a fake slate of Trump electors during the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. The then-President embraced Eastman’s fringe theories and unsuccessfully tried to pressure Pence into carrying out the scheme.
Both Pence and Jacob rejected the idea after they worked closely with House and Senate parliamentarians and concluded the then-VP lacked the constitutional authority to overturn elections, according to Politico.
Additionally, Jacob also assisted Pence in revising parts of the vice presidential script for Jan. 6 to convey the then-VP’s decision to adhere to the Electoral Count Act amid Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election results.
Jacob reportedly testified before the committee’s investigators in February. According to CNN, Jacob and Short did not discuss their conversations with Trump because the former president’s legal team advised them not to reveal presidential conversations, which Trump’s lawyers believed should be covered under executive privilege.
