Jan. 6 hearing told Trump knew plan to pressure Pence was illegal, went ahead anyway

Committee members revealed evidence that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows knew -- or was at least telling other aides that he agreed with their view -- that Trump and his attorney John Eastman's plan to overturn the election was illegal and that Pence had no ability to reject electoral votes for Biden sent to Congress.

In his taped interview with the committee, Pence's chief of staff Marc Short told panel lawyers that that Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, said he agreed with Short and Pence that the vice president lacked such authority.

"Did Mr. Meadows ever explicitly ... agree with you or say, 'Yeah, that makes sense'?" interviewers asked.

"I believe that Mark did agree," Short said. "But as I mentioned, I think Mark told so many people so many different things that it was not something that I would necessarily accept as ... resolved."

-ABC News' Benjamin Siegel

Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, said he grew worried about the vice president’s safety as the disagreement between Pence and Trump escalated in the days leading up to Jan. 6.

“The concern was for the vice president’s security, so I wanted to make sure the head of the vice president’s Secret Service was aware that likely, as these disputes became more public, that the president would lash out in some way,” Short said in his taped deposition.

Short called the Secret Service on Jan. 5, 2021.

“After the recess, we will hear that Marc Short’s concerns were justified,” Rep. Pete Anguilar said. “The vice president was in danger.”

As Attorney General Merrick Garland and his prosecutors are closely watching the hearings conducted by the committee this week, the Department of Justice sent a new letter telling the committee it was "critical" members "provide us with copies of the transcripts of all its witness interviews."

In a letter to the committee's chief investigator Wednesday, senior officials at the Justice Department said that the first two hearings this month showed the interviews conducted by the hearing "are not just potentially relevant to our overall criminal investigations but are likely relevant to specific prosecutions that have already commenced."

The request suggests there are matters beyond violence on the ground on Jan. 6 that the Justice Department is already investigating -- specifically alternate or fake electors as a part of the theory that Pence could unilaterally block the ceremony of Joe Biden as President.

The committee's chairman, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, told ABC News on Thursday hat his group didn't intend to provide the department with the transcripts of their witness depositions prior to the public hearings concluding -- but he added that that doesn't mean the committee won't cooperate, only that they don't want to stop their work to accommodate such a request.

Click here for more on potential federal crimes the committee has floated.

-ABC News' Katherine Faulders and Alexander Mallin

Trump White House attorney John Eastman, at the center of the alleged scheme to send a false slate of electors to Congress and have Pence refuse to certify votes, based his reasoning on a theory the committee argued he never believed.

According to the committee, Eastman sought to take advantage of an ambiguity in the Electoral Count Act and claim the vice president could has the constitutional authority to reject electoral votes outright and use his capacity as presiding officer to suspend the proceedings.

"He described for me what he thought the ambiguity was in the statute. And he was walking through it at that time. And I said, 'Hold on a second, I don't understand you're saying,'" said former Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann in taped testimony.

Showing past documents, the committee said that Eastman had dismissed the same power he later claimed Pence could have used.

"In this letter, an idea was proposed that the vice president could determine which electors to count -- but the person writing in blue negates that argument," said Rep. Pete Aguilar. "Judge Luttig, does it surprise you that the author of those comments in blue, are in fact, John Eastman?

Former federal judge Michael Luttig responded "yes" and called it "constitutional mischief."