Ex-Trump Official Produces Private Email Live on CNN Undermining Keith Kellogg’s Trump Endorsement

Marc Short, the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, read out a private email sent to him by former Pence adviser Keith Kellogg on CNN after Kellogg bashed him in a statement and called Pence “unworthy of the presidency.”

On CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer asked Short to respond to Kellogg’s Monday statement calling Pence a poor leader “unworthy of the presidency,” Short a “failed political correspondent,” and former President Donald Trump — Pence’s Republican primary rival — the best candidate for president.

“I’m saddened to read that,” reacted Short. “I don’t want to denigrate anybody who has served our country in uniform, in combat like Keith has, but at the same time I think Keith has just recently boasted that he nominated Mike Pence for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which I don’t think is consistent with his comments of him lacking leadership skills.”

Short continued:

I also know there were a lot of young men and women on our staff who stood at their posts on January 6. Unfortunately, Keith was not one of them. Keith was at the rally at the time the United States Secret Service evacuated the vice president. The vice president’s national security adviser was down on the rally encouraging people to march on the Capitol, so he did not stay in his post.

And you know I did bring a receipt tonight because this is an email that I got from Keith on January 6, in the evening of January 6, in which he said, ‘The president is up in the residence. I recommend you stay on the hill and finish the electoral college issue tonight.’ I responded, ‘That’s our plan,’ and he said, ‘That’s not a good plan, that’s a great plan. Close this thing out tonight.’ So, on January 6, Keith was clearly supporting the vice president’s actions. I know that he’s still on Donald Trump’s payroll and perhaps that’s why he’s saying something different today.

“That’s a pretty serious charge you’re making right now,” replied Blitzer, to which Short said, “I think that his comments, you know, are very inconsistent with everything he has said about Mike Pence and also in private to Mike Pence in the two years since January 6.”

Following the segment, CNN anchor Jim Sciutto also published the private email exchange between Short and Kellogg on Twitter.

Watch above via CNN.

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