Former US envoy Arthur Culvahouse key adviser at Jan 6 inquiry

Arthur Culvahouse, Donald Trump’s former ambassador to Australia, has popped up as the top legal adviser to a key witness.

Donald Trump’s former ambassador to Australia, Arthur Culvahouse, has popped up as the top legal adviser to a key witness for the January 6th commission, which is seeking to link former president with a plot to overturn the 2020 election.

Mr Culvahouse, an establishment Republican-aligned lawyer, flashed across American television screens during the third public hearing of the January 6 commission on Thursday (Friday AEST), sitting behind Greg Jacob, who was former vice president Mike’s Pence’s top legal adviser during the January 6th riots in 2021.

Broadcast live by most US news channels, Mr Jacob savaged one of Mr Trump’s then top legal advisers, John Eastman, who had tried to convince Mr Trump that the vice president had the constitutional power to overturn the election result.

“Greg Jacob was an O’Melveny partner on my team that vetted then Governor Pence to be the Republican nominee for Vice President in 2016,” Mr Culvahouse told The Australian, declining to comment further.

Mr Culvahouse, 73, a long-time friend of Mr Pence, was nominated by then President Trump in 2018 to replace Barack Obama’s ambassador in Canberra John Berry, who left Australia in late 2016.

Mr Culvahouse has since returned to his old law firm, O’Melveny & Myers, as ‘chairman emeritus’, according to the firm’s website. Mr Jacob worked at the same firm until March 2020, when he joined Mr Pence’s staff, and has also since returned.

“It is unambiguous that the vice president does not have the authority to reject electors there is no suggestion of any kind that it does in the 12th amendment,” Mr Jacob said during the hearing. ”Critically, no vice president in 230 years of history had ever claimed to have that kind of authority”.

Mr Culvahouse, a former senior White House legal adviser to Ronald Reagan, also vetted Sarah Palin’s vice president bid for John McCain in 2008.

The hearings have divided Republicans over the extent of Mr Trump’s culpability in instigating and encouraging the January 6 riots, which saw the Capitol Building overrun by hundreds of pro-Trump protesters, who had demanded Mr Pence overturn the result.

The hearings have complicated the former vice president’s prospective candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, in which Mr Trump is also widely expected to run.

High-profile Democrat congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the January 6th committee, suggested Mr Trump should be charged with criminal offences and praised Mr Pence as a “hero” on Sunday (AEST).

“In a time of absolutely scandalous betrayal of people’s oaths of office … somebody who does their job and sticks to the law will stand out as a hero on that day. And on that day, he was a hero,” Mr Raskin said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

The third hearing also revealed how Mr Pence had been as close at 40 feet to the protesters on the day of January 6th, and had withstood repeated and significant pressure from Mr Trump to overturn the result of the election in the lead up to January 6th.

Mr Trump has repeatedly slammed the committee, which appears to be publicly divided over whether to recommend criminal charges against Mr Trump, as a partisan witch hunt.

The next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday 1pm EST.