Pence Chief of Staff Says ‘There Were No Safeguards’ in White House

• Pence’s ex-chief of staff says there were “no safeguards” in the White House ahead of January 6. 
• “Unfortunately, I think the president had some really, really bad advice,” Marc Short told journalist David Drucker. 
• Short spoke to Drucker for his forthcoming book “In Trump’s Shadow” on the future of the GOP.

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff says there were “no safeguards” in the White House leading up to the January 6 insurrection as Trump repeatedly received bad advice about the results of the 2020 election.

Marc Short, Pence’s longtime right-hand man, spoke to Washington Examiner journalist and author David Drucker for Drucker’s forthcoming book “In Trump’s Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP,” a copy of which Insider obtained ahead of its October 19 publication by Twelve Books. 

“Unfortunately, I think the president had some really, really bad advice,” Short told Drucker. “The way the White House was structured at that point was that those people giving that really, really bad advice were given carte blanche access to the president, and I think there were no safeguards in the way the White House was being run at that point.” 

While Short didn’t name names, previously reporting n books like Wolff’s “Landslide” and Michael Bender’s “Frankly We Did Win This Election” detailed the vacuum of advisers in the White House.  

By January 6, Wolff wrote in his book, many administration officials and White House staffers had quit or distanced themselves from the action.

They left only a small circle of aides who were still involved in Trump’s day-to-day activities. The White House counsel’s office being largely checked out left Rudy Giuliani as Trump’s main legal confidante, and created an opening for conspiracy theorists like lawyer Sidney Powell and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to get Trump’s ear and promote conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was rigged.