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      Marjorie Taylor Greene texted Trump chief of staff urging martial law to overturn election

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene texted Trump chief of staff urging martial law to overturn election Records Mark Meadows turned over to committee investigating attack are missing texts from critical 12-day periodDays before Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared in a text to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to press for Donald Trump to overturn his 2020 election defeat by invoking martial law, new messages show.The message – one of more than 2,000 texts turned over by Meadows to the House select committee investigating January 6 and first reported by CNN – shows that some of Trump’s most ardent allies on Capitol Hill were pressing for Trump to return himself to office even after the Capitol attack.“In our private chat with only Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law,” Greene texted on 17 January. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.”The message about Trump potentially invoking martial law, earlier reported by CNN on Monday and confirmed by the Guardian, came a month after the idea had been raised in a heated Oval Office meeting a month before, where Trump considered ways to overturn the 2020 election.Meadows did not appear to respond to Greene’s text. But the messages Trump’s top White House aide was receiving shows the extraordinary ideas swirling around Trump after he and his operatives were unable to stop the certification of Biden’s election win on January 6.McConnell was ‘exhilarated’ by Trump’s apparent January 6 downfall, book saysRead moreGreene – one of Trump’s fiercest far-right defenders on Capitol Hill – also texted Meadows days before the Capitol attack asking about how to prepare for objections to Biden’s win at the joint session of Congress, the text messages show.“Good morning Mark, I’m here in DC. We have to get organized for the 6th,” Greene wrote on 31 December. “I would like to meet with Rudy Giuliani again. We didn’t get to speak with him long. Also anyone who can help. We are getting a lot of members on board.”That text message from Greene, who had not yet been sworn in as a member of Congress, a week before the Capitol attack also underscores her close relationship with the Trump White House and an extraordinary level of coordination to obstruct Biden being certified as president.But the text messages that Meadows did not turn over to the select committee – as opposed to the communications he agreed to produce for the investigation – were perhaps more notable as the panel investigates connections between the White House and the Capitol attack.The panel is aware, for instance, that Meadows had contacts through December 2020 and January 2021 with organizers of the Save America rally at the Ellipse that descended into the Capitol attack as well as with Trump campaign officials, say sources close to the inquiry.Yet none of the text messages Meadows produced to the select committee through a cooperation deal agreed last year and in response to a subpoena show any such contacts, raising the specter that he might have deliberately withheld some communications.The former White House chief of staff appears to have ultimately turned over no text messages between 9 December and 21 December, a critical time period in the lead-up to the Capitol attack during which a number of key moments took place.Meadows appeared to be aware of efforts by the White House and others, for instance, to send fake Trump slates of electors to Congress. The idea was to have “dueling” slates of electors force then-vice president Mike Pence to discount those votes and return Trump to office.That scheme – which the select committee believes was coordinated in part by the Trump White House, the sources said – appeared to occur on 14 December, the deadline under the Electoral Count Act for states to send electoral college votes to Congress.Meadows also was in close contact with Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and others after the contentious Oval Office meeting with Trump on 18 December, as he sought to bar onetime Trump campaign lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell from the White House.But Meadows appears to have turned over no text messages from that crucial period, as allies of the former president started to set their sights on January 6, including the Stop the Steal movement that started to plan a protest at the Capitol around that time.The seeming omission may be explained in part by the fact that Meadows was communicating about those plans on his personal cell phone – against which the select committee issued a subpoena contested by Meadows in federal court as “overly broad”.The absence of messages between 9 December and 21 December may also be explained more straightforwardly by the fact that Meadows did not receive any messages during that period. Meadows’ lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.House investigators are not convinced they have been given all the text messages relevant to their subpoena, according to one source with knowledge of the matter, and expect to continue pursuing Meadows’ documents and personal communications in court.In a motion for summary judgment with respect to Meadows’ records, the select committee said in a 248-page court filing late on Friday that it believed Meadows’ claims for withholding material from the investigation on grounds of executive privilege were baseless.TopicsUS Capitol attackMark MeadowsUS elections 2020Donald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows was warned of illegality of scheme to overturn 2020 election

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      Mark Meadows was warned of illegality of scheme to overturn 2020 electionA former staffer testified that White House counsel said the scheme involving fake electoral college votes was not legally sound Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows was warned the effort to overturn the 2020 election with fake electoral college votes was not legally sound – and yet proceeded anyway, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack said Friday.In a court filing, the panel also said that Meadows went ahead with plans to have Trump speak at the Ellipse rally that descended into the Capitol attack, only days after being expressly told by the US Secret Service that there was potential for violence on 6 January 2021.Mark Meadows is still registered to vote in South Carolina and Virginia, officials sayRead moreThe 248-page court filing could serve to increase the legal exposure for Meadows. It aims to portray Meadows as someone who was instrumental in trying to overturn the outcome of the election that Trump lost to Biden. The allegations, based on testimony from a former White House staffer, Cassidy Hutchinson, suggested that Meadows knowingly acted in an unlawful manner.Hutchinson testified that Pat Cipollone, who was the White House counsel at the time, told Meadows and Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani that the scheme to have states send Trump slates of electors to Congress in states that he lost in the 2020 election was not legally sound, the panel said.Hutchinson testified that she heard White House attorneys tell Meadows and other officials – including “certain” but unspecified congressmen – that trying to certify a Trump win in that manner “did not comply with the law” and “was not legally sound”, the filing said.Nonetheless, it said, Meadows “participated in a widely publicized call” with the top election official in Georgia – the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger – “and other related efforts seeking to change the election results” there.Hutchinson, who worked in Meadows’ office, also testified in a separate deposition that Meadows knew about the potential for violence on 6 January 2021 after being briefed on intelligence reports by the Secret Service. “I know that people had brought information forward to [Meadows] that had indicated that there could be violence on the 6th,” she said.Hutchinson said Meadows had been presented with the warnings either one or two days before the Capitol attack took place. She said former White House chief of operations Anthony Ornato delivered them to Meadows in his office.“We had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th,” Hutchinson told the select committee in the first of her two depositions, one in February and another in March.“But despite this and other warnings,” wrote Douglas Letter, the general counsel for the House of Representatives, in the court filing, “President Trump urged the attendees at the January 6th rally to march to the Capitol to ‘take back your country.’”The select committee’s investigation into the Capitol riot and its aftermath has been investigating whether Trump and his staffers illegally conspired with the extremists who stormed the Capitol as Congress was certifying Biden’s presidential victory. It has also been examining whether Trump and members of his administration broke federal laws prohibiting obstruction of a congressional proceeding, which in this case would be the interrupted certification session.As part of that probe, the committee subpoenaed records from Meadows’s cellphone service provider, Verizon, among others.Though he has turned over at least some communications to the committee, Meadows sued to stop those subpoenas, portraying them as “overly broad and cumbersome”. The select committee included excerpts of Hutchinson’s testimony in an effort to persuade the district court in Washington DC to reject that lawsuit.If granted, the select committee’s motion for summary judgement could finally cap a protracted legal battle with Trump’s final White House chief of staff. It has detailed the numerous ways Meadows was involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, including the scheme to put forward “alternate” slates of electors for Trump in states that he lost.The aim of the scheme, the Guardian has previously reported, was to have then-vice president Mike Pence declare at the joint session of Congress on 6 January 2021 that he could not count states with slates for both Trump and Joe Biden, and return Trump to office.“The select committee’s filing today urges the court to reject Mark Meadows’s baseless claims and put an end to his obstruction of our investigation,” the panel’s chair, congressman Bennie Thompson, and vice chair, congresswoman Liz Cheney, said in a statement.Much of the panel’s new revelations late on Friday cited testimony from Hutchinson, who was present for key discussions in the White House in the weeks before the Capitol attack. Hutchinson testified after she was issued a subpoena in November.She also recounted how the White House counsel’s office had threatened to resign if Trump went ahead with an extraordinary plan to seize voting machines and assert emergency presidential powers over false claims of election fraud.“Once it became clear that there would be mass resignations, including lawyers in the White House counsel’s office – including some of the staff that Mr Meadows worked closely with – you know, I know that did factor into his thinking,” she said of Meadows.The former Trump White House aide, who served as special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, testified that some members of Congress, such as Scott Perry, who is now the chair of the rightwing House Freedom Caucus, supported sending people to the Capitol on 6 January 2021.Testimony from Hutchinson and other aides also corroborated a Senate judiciary committee report that found Trump unsuccessfully sought the imprimatur of the justice department to bolster his claims of election fraud.Meadows initially cooperated with the inquiry before abruptly withdrawing his assistance last year. He turned over a trove of evidence that included an email in November 2020 discussing appointing alternate slates of electors, and others about overturning the 2020 election.But he then proceeded to withhold more than 1,000 other messages on his personal phone over executive privilege claims, the filing said. He also refused to appear for a deposition, reversing a cooperation deal agreed between his lawyer and the select committee.In response, the House referred Meadows, who was the top official in the Trump administration, for prosecution for contempt of Congress, though the justice department has yet to issue charges.TopicsMark MeadowsUS Capitol attackTrump administrationDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows is still registered to vote in South Carolina and Virginia, officials say

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      Mark Meadows is still registered to vote in South Carolina and Virginia, officials sayDonald Trump’s former chief of staff was removed from voter rolls in North Carolina earlier this month Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump who was removed from North Carolina voter rolls earlier this month, is still a registered voter in two other states, according to officials.Chris Whitmire, a spokesperson for the South Carolina elections commission, said the former Republican congressman and his wife registered as voters in the state in March.“That’s when he became active,” Whitmire said, noting that neither Meadows had yet cast a vote in the state. “From our perspective, it just looks like any new South Carolina voter.”Ginni Thomas urged Trump’s chief of staff to overturn election resultsRead moreThe South Carolina registration was first reported by the Washington Post, which noted that Meadows had been a registered voter simultaneously in three states – the Carolinas and Virginia – until North Carolina removed him from its rolls earlier this month. Meadows remains a registered Virginia voter, the paper reported.Mark and Debra Meadows bought a home on Lake Keowee for $1.6m in July, according to records for the property, which was listed on their South Carolina voter registration records.The former North Carolina congressman appeared in South Carolina earlier this week with members of the state legislature’s newly formed Freedom Caucus, an offshoot of a conservative group Meadows helped found in the US House.A representative for Meadows declined to comment on the South Carolina voter registration.Last month, the office of the North Carolina attorney general, Josh Stein, asked the state bureau of investigation to look into Meadows’ voter registration in that state, which listed a home he never owned and may never have visited as his legal residence.Public records indicated Meadows had been registered to vote in Virginia and North Carolina, where he listed a Scaly Mountain mobile home he did not own as his legal residence weeks before casting an absentee 2020 presidential election ballot in the state.Trump, for whom Meadows was chief of staff at the time, won the battleground state by just over one percentage point.Marjorie Taylor Greene appears in court over attempt to bar her from CongressRead morePublic records indicate Meadows registered to vote in Alexandria, Virginia, about a year after he registered in Scaly Mountain and just weeks before Virginia’s high-profile governor’s election last fall.Meadows frequently raised the prospect of voter fraud before the 2020 presidential election as polls showed Trump trailing Joe Biden and in the months after Trump’s loss, to suggest Biden was not the legitimate winner.Judges, election officials in both parties and Trump’s own attorney general have concluded there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Experts point to isolated incidents of intentional or unintentional violations of voter laws in every election.Through the Electronic Registration Information Center, a consortium through which states exchange data about voter registration, Whitmire also said officials periodically pull voter lists and remove those who have more recently registered in a new state.TopicsMark MeadowsUS politicsNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaVirginianewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows removed from North Carolina voter roll amid fraud inquiry

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      Mark Meadows removed from North Carolina voter roll amid fraud inquiryState is investigating whether Trump’s ex-chief of staff committed fraud by registering to vote at residence he never owned or lived in Donald Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been removed from the electoral roll in North Carolina, amid a criminal inquiry into whether he committed election fraud by registering to vote at a residence he never owned or lived in.Melanie Thibault, director of the Macon county board of elections, confirmed her decision to the Asheville Citizen Times, which reported that the registration for Meadows’s wife, Debra, remained active.Before working for Trump, Meadows was a congressman from North Carolina.According to the New Yorker, which reported the story last month, Meadows registered as his address a rented mobile home, in Scaly Mountain, which he reportedly had never visited.He voted from there as an absentee in the 2020 presidential election. He has subsequently registered to vote in Virginia.According to neighbors in Scaly Mountain and the former owner of the property, Debra Meadows rented and stayed at the mobile home for “a few nights” but her husband was never seen there.Thibault said Meadows’s removal from the electoral roll was standard procedure under a statute that says a person who votes in another state loses their registration in North Carolina.Meadows, who with his wife owns a condo in Virginia, reportedly voted in that state in 2021, triggering the decision to remove him from the rolls.The Citizen reported that the North Carolina state bureau of investigation was continuing its inquiry into possible voter fraud by Meadows, a fierce Trump loyalist who has never commented on the story.The bureau, the newspaper said, would not comment on whether Meadows’s removal from the North Carolina roll would affect its investigation.Meadows has commented, extensively, on the dangers of voter fraud and its supposed role in Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.He addressed the subject at length in his memoir, The Chief’s Chief, a book which caused huge controversy when it revealed that Trump tested positive then negative for Covid before his first debate against Joe Biden, results which Meadows did not disclose.“President Trump had alerted us to the strong possibility that there would be fraud connected to these mail-in ballots, and we wanted to be on the lookout for it,” Meadows wrote in the book, adding: “We wanted to approach any potential challenges with the utmost seriousness.”The Trump campaign lost the overwhelming majority of cases alleging voter fraud in court. Trump’s lie about mass voter fraud in Biden’s win also fueled the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, in an attempt to stop certification of electoral college results.In his book, Meadows called the Capitol attack “shameful” and “the regrettable actions of a small group of people”.About 800 people, however, have been charged, with offences including seditious conspiracy.Meadows also claimed “millions” of Americans had “genuine concerns” about voter fraud.Meadows’s own legal jeopardy is not confined to North Carolina. The House committee investigating the attack has referred him to the Department of Justice for a possible charge of criminal contempt of Congress.TopicsMark MeadowsUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationNorth CarolinanewsReuse this content More

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      Ginni Thomas urged Trump’s chief of staff to overturn election results

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      Ginni Thomas urged Trump’s chief of staff to overturn election resultsIn texts to Mark Meadows, the wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas pushed Trump’s ‘big lie’ In the weeks following the 2020 election, the conservative activist Ginni Thomas – who is married to the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas – repeatedly implored Donald Trump’s chief of staff to help overturn the results, according to text messages obtained by the Washington Post and CBS News.In one of 29 messages seen by the news outlets, Thomas wrote to Mark Meadows on 10 November: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! … You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”Republican says Trump asked him to ‘rescind’ 2020 election and remove Biden from officeRead moreThe messages shed light on Thomas’s direct line to the White House and how she used it to push the “big lie” that Trump had won the election – with Meadows’ apparent support, the Post reported. The exchanges are among 2,320 texts Meadows handed to the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.“This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote in a 24 November message. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”Meadows’ lawyer, George Terwilliger III, acknowledged the messages’ existence to the Post but said they did not raise “legal issues”.Thomas did not respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment. She has previously said that she does not discuss her activist work with her husband, and the messages do not mention him or the supreme court, according to the Post.Terwilliger and Thomas did not immediately reply to requests for comment from the Guardian. Messages left for the supreme court’s public information office were not immediately returned.When the supreme court rejected Trump challenges over the election in February 2021, Clarence Thomas dissented, calling the decision “baffling”, the Post notes.The text messages – 21 of which are from Thomas and eight from Meadows – contain references to conspiracy theories. Thomas, for instance, highlighted a claim popular among QAnon followers that the president had watermarked certain ballots as a means of identifying fraud.She also suggested the Bidens were behind supposed fraud. “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators … are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition,” she wrote.Thomas seemed to condemn some Republicans in Congress for being insufficiently loyal to Trump. “House and Senate guys are pathetic too… only 4 GOP House members seen out in street rallies with grassroots,” she wrote in a 10 November message, adding later that night: “Where the heck are all those who benefited by Presidents coattails?!!!”Other messages refer to conservative commentators and lawyers who supported Trump’s cause, including Sidney Powell, whom Thomas apparently wanted to be “the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team. Powell was behind a slate of lawsuits seeking to overturn the election and faces investigation by the Texas State Bar Association over alleged false claims in court. Thomas expressed repeated support for Powell even as she became a divisive figure in pro-Trump circles, the Post notes. “Sidney Powell & improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved,” she wrote on 13 November.“Listen to Rush. Mark Steyn, Bongino, Cleta,” Thomas urged Meadows in another message, apparently referring to the commentators Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn and Dan Bongino, along with Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who backed Trump’s claims in Georgia.“I will stand firm. We will fight until there is no fight left,” Meadows replied. “Our country is too precious to give up on. Thanks for all you do.”Thomas has acknowledged attending Trump’s rally prior to the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021, though she says she left before the then president spoke. She condemned the ensuing violence.TopicsUS elections 2020Clarence ThomasDonald TrumpMark MeadowsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows faces electoral fraud question over voter registration address

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      Mark Meadows faces electoral fraud question over voter registration addressDonald Trump’s last chief of staff reported to have registered using North Carolina mobile home at which he seems never to have lived Mark Meadows played a key role in supporting and advancing Donald Trump’s lie about widespread electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden, but the former White House chief of staff may have committed such fraud himself.According to the New Yorker, Meadows registered to vote at a property in North Carolina at which he appears never to have lived.Mark Meadows was at the center of the storm on 6 January. But only Trump could call it offRead moreMeadows resigned from the US House and became Trump’s fourth and last chief of staff in March 2020. He registered to vote in September, the New Yorker said.Asked for the address “where you physically live”, the magazine said, Meadows “wrote down the address of a 14ft-by-62ft mobile home in Scaly Mountain”, North Carolina, and “listed his move-in date for this address as the following day, 20 September”.“Meadows does not own this property and never has,” the New Yorker said. “It is not clear that he has ever spent a single night there.”Meadows did not comment to the magazine. The New Yorker spoke to the home’s former and current owners and neighbors and said that while members of Meadows’ family may have spent time in the property, it was not clear he ever slept there.The current owner said: “I’ve made a lot of improvements. But when I got it, it was not the kind of place you’d think the chief of staff of the president would be staying.”Told of Meadows using the address to register to vote, the owner said: “That’s weird that he would do that. Really weird.”Were Meadows to be found to have committed voter fraud, it would not be the first time he had embarrassed the president he served.In December, the Guardian was first to report that in his memoir, Meadows describes how Trump tested positive for Covid-19 but covered up the result (and a second negative) and went ahead with his first debate against Joe Biden.The memoir repeats Trump’s claims about voter fraud, lies which stoked the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021.Meadows initially cooperated with the House committee investigating the attack, then withdrew. The committee recommended a charge of criminal contempt of Congress. None has been forthcoming from the Department of Justice.As the New Yorker pointed out, it is a federal crime to provide false information to register to vote in a federal election.Melanie D Thibault, director of the board of elections in Macon county, North Carolina, told the New Yorker she was “kind of dumbfounded” by Meadows’ registration.She also said he had voted absentee, by mail, in the 2020 election.Meadows’ old boss has repeatedly attacked voting by mail – despite doing it himself.TopicsMark MeadowsUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracy

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      Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracyMessages between Mark Meadows and others suggest the Trump White House coordinated efforts to stop Joe Biden’s certification The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is examining whether Donald Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy on 6 January that connected the White House’s scheme to stop Joe Biden’s certification with the insurrection, say two senior sources familiar with the matter.Biden condemns Trump’s ‘web of lies’ a year on from deadly Capitol assaultRead moreThe committee’s new focus on the potential for a conspiracy marks an aggressive escalation in its inquiry as it confronts evidence that suggests the former president potentially engaged in criminal conduct egregious enough to warrant a referral to the justice department.House investigators are interested in whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy after communications turned over by Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others suggested the White House coordinated efforts to stop Biden’s certification, the sources said.The select committee has several thousand messages, among which include some that suggest the Trump White House briefed a number of House Republicans on its plan for then-vice president Mike Pence to abuse his ceremonial role and not certify Biden’s win, the sources said.The fact that the select committee has messages suggesting the Trump White House directed Republican members of Congress to execute a scheme to stop Biden’s certification is significant as it could give rise to the panel considering referrals for potential crimes, the sources said.Members and counsel on the select committee are examining in the first instance whether in seeking to stop the certification, Trump and his aides violated the federal law that prohibits obstruction of a congressional proceeding – the joint session on 6 January – the sources said.The select committee believes, the sources said, that Trump may be culpable for an obstruction charge given he failed for hours to intervene to stop the violence at the Capitol perpetrated by his supporters in his name.But the select committee is also looking at whether Trump oversaw an unlawful conspiracy that involved coordination between the “political elements” of the White House plan communicated to Republican lawmakers and extremist groups that stormed the Capitol, the sources said.That would probably be the most serious charge for which the select committee might consider a referral, as it considers a range of other criminal conduct that has emerged in recent weeks from obstruction to potential wire fraud by the GOP.The vice-chair of the select committee, the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, referenced the obstruction charge when she read from the criminal code before members voted unanimously last November to recommend Meadows in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify.The Guardian previously reported that Trump personally directed lawyers and political operatives working from the Willard hotel in Washington DC to find ways to stop Biden’s certification from happening at all on 6 January just hours before the Capitol attack.But House investigators are yet to find evidence tying Trump personally to the Capitol attack, the sources said, and may ultimately only recommend referrals for the straight obstruction charge, which has already been brought against around 275 rioters, rather than for conspiracy.The justice department could yet charge Trump and aides separate to the select committee investigation, but one of sources said the panel – as of mid-December – had no idea whether the agency is actively examining potential criminality by the former president.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment on details about the investigation. A spokesperson for the justice department declined to comment whether the agency had opened a criminal inquiry for Trump or his closest allies over 6 January.Still, the select committee appears to be moving towards making at least some referrals – or alternatively recommendations in its final report – that an aggressive prosecutor at the justice department could use to pursue a criminal inquiry, the sources said.US Capitol attack: Liz Cheney says Mike Pence ‘was a hero’ on 6 JanuaryRead moreThe select committee is examining the evidence principally to identify legislative reforms to prevent a repeat of Trump’s plan to subvert the election, but members say if they find Trump violated federal law, they have an obligation to refer that to the justice department.Sending a criminal referral to the justice department – essentially a recommendation for prosecution – carries no formal legal weight since Congress lacks the authority to force it to open a case, and House investigators have no authority to charge witnesses with a crime.But a credible criminal referral from the select committee could have a substantial political effect given the importance of the 6 January inquiry, and place pressure on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to initiate an investigation, or explain why he might not do so.​​Internal discussions about criminal referrals intensified after communications turned over by Meadows revealed alarming lines of communication between the Trump White House and Republican lawmakers over 6 January, the sources said.In one exchange released by the select committee, one Republican lawmaker texted Meadows an apology for not pulling off what might have amounted to a coup, saying 6 January was a “terrible day” not because of the attack, but because they were unable to stop Biden’s certification.The select committee believes messages such as that text – as well as remarks from a Republican on the House floor as the Capitol came under attack – might represent one part of a conspiracy by the White House to obstruct the joint session, the sources said.In referencing objections to six states, the text also appears to comport with a memo authored by the Trump lawyer John Eastman that suggested lodging objections to six states – raising the specter the White House distributed the plan more widely than previously known.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, added on ABC last week that the investigation had found evidence to suggest the events of 6 January “appeared to be a coordinated effort on the part of a number of people to undermine the election”.Counsel for the select committee indicated in their contempt of Congress report for Meadows that they intended to ask Trump’s former chief of staff about those communications he turned over voluntarily, before he broke off a cooperation deal and refused to testify.Thompson has also suggested to reporters that he believes Meadows stopped cooperating with the inquiry in part because of pressure from Trump, but the select committee has not opened a separate witness intimidation investigation into the former president, one of the sources said.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsMark MeadowsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Mark Meadows was at the center of the storm on 6 January. But only Trump could call it off

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      Mark Meadows was at the center of the storm on 6 January. But only Trump could call it offTrump’s former White House chief of staff has become a character of supreme interest to the Capitol attack committee, with a treasure trove of documents divulging golden nuggets of information On the morning of 29 December, eight days before hundreds of Trump supporters and far-right extremists stormed the US Capitol in the worst domestic attack on American democracy arguably since the civil war, the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows fired off an email to the head of the justice department.It was a strange message for Donald Trump’s right-hand man to send to Jeffrey Rosen, acting US attorney general, given that the material in it was written entirely in Italian. It attached a letter addressed to Trump from an Italian named Carlo Goria who said he worked for a US aerospace company and then went on to regurgitate a conspiracy theory that was doing the rounds, known as “Italygate”.Three days later, Meadows sent Rosen another email containing a link to a 13-minute YouTube video titled “Brad Johnson: Rome, Satellites, Services, an Update”. In the video, Johnson, a retired CIA station chief, gave further details of Italygate, which he described as a secret plot to overturn the US presidential election and stop Trump from gaining a second term.In Johnson’s account, an Italian defense contractor, Leonardo, had joined forces with the CIA to carry out the dastardly scheme. Together, they had hacked into Italian military satellites, beaming them down on to US voting machines in battleground states and remotely switching votes from Trump to Joe Biden.Rosen politely replied to Meadows that he had received the video, then sent a copy of it to his deputy Richard Donoghue. Later that day, Donoghue told his boss what he thought of Johnson’s video.“Pure insanity”, he said.Meadows’ Italygate emails, highlighted in a 51-page report released this week by the House select committee investigation into the Capital insurrection, are some of the more memorable elements of his vast campaign to advance Trump’s big lie that the presidential election had been rigged.It’s not every day that the chief aide to the most powerful person on Earth bombards the top law enforcement official in the country with lurid tales of vote-switching military satellites, composed in Italian.But that is just the start of it.As the select committee descends ever deeper into the murky waters of Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, Meadows is fast surfacing as a character of supreme interest.Between election day on 3 November and 6 January, when Trump’s exhortations to his supporters to scupper the certification of Biden’s victory climaxed in violent scenes that left five people dead and more than 140 law enforcement officers injured, Meadows was a whirlwind of activity.Not only was he frantically busy propagating Italygate and other conspiracy theories, not only did he try to influence the actions of the Department of Justice in flagrant violation of White House rules barring any such interference, but he was also in direct contact with the organisers of the 6 January rally that preceded the violence, and he was there too by his master’s side when the insurrection at the US Capitol kicked off.In short, Meadows is honing into view, in the Washington Post’s phrase, as the “chief enabler to a president who was desperate to hold on to power”.That role has now landed Meadows in a great deal of legal trouble. The hard-right Republican from North Carolina, who was one of Trump’s cheerleaders in Congress before being airlifted to the White House as his final chief of staff, initially defied a subpoena to appear before the select committee, then changed his mind after Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House adviser, was indicted for similar lack of cooperation.A little over a week ago he did a U-turn on his U-turn, announcing he was no longer playing ball with the congressional investigators after all. Some reports have suggested that his second change of heart was motivated by Trump’s furious reaction to what he read in the Guardian.The Guardian revealed Meadows had disclosed in his new book, The Chief’s Chief, that Trump had tested positive for Covid before going on stage with Biden last September in the first presidential debate. That inconvenient truth had previously been kept secret, and conflicts with the official line peddled at the time.On Tuesday the full House of Representatives voted to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress after he failed to turn up for a deposition, referring the decision to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution. He faces a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000 for every count with which he may be charged.Meadows’ renewed non-cooperation will make the select committee’s job harder, but he has already presented them with a treasure trove of documents that has supercharged their investigation. It includes no fewer than 9,000 pages of records, among them 2,000 text messages.Those texts are beginning to divulge golden nuggets of information that expose members of the Trump inner circle as having been intimately involved in pressing for the election to be overturned.One text from an as yet anonymous member of Congress sent to Meadows on 4 January advocated for the states of Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, all of which Biden had won, to send alternate slates of Trump electors to Congress “and have it go” to the US supreme court for a ruling.Jim Jordan, the former wrestler-turned-Ohio congressman who was a close ally of Meadows in the rightwing House Freedom Caucus which they co-founded, sent a text to his friend a day before the insurrection outlining a plot in which the vice-president Mike Pence could simply refuse to certify Biden’s victory, in blatant disregard for his constitutional duties.The 38-page PowerPoint that laid out in detail a blueprint for a Trump coup was also sent to Meadows, though he denies having acted on the document.As for the insurrection itself, the select committee said that Meadows was in touch with at least some of the main organisers of the “Stop the Steal” rally on the morning of 6 January at which Trump called on his supporters to “fight like hell”. Members of the committee were intrigued to know why the chief of staff chose to use his personal cell phone, as well as the encrypted mobile app Signal, to conduct these conversations.When the violence erupted, Meadows continued to act as a communications hub alongside the president. Text messages sent to him by Donald Trump Jr give a rare glimpse into Trump family dynamics that would be worthy of a Roy family subplot in Succession.As hundreds of Trump supporters were smashing their way into the Capitol building, attacking police officers as they went, Don Jr desperately wanted to get a message to his father. But he didn’t call dad, as might be expected.Instead, he texted Meadows. “We need an Oval address,” the presidential son exclaimed. “He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”Similar urgent missives were fired at Meadows by several Fox News stars. Laura Ingraham, the ultra-right host of the Ingraham Angle, told him: “Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”Sean Hannity added his own plaintiff appeal: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.”The plethora of texts to Meadows from Trump family members, Fox News hosts and top Republicans underline important aspects of Trump’s coterie in the hours before, during and after the insurrection. The Fox News hosts used language (“hey Mark”, “all of us”) suggesting they viewed themselves as one of the inner team, casting aside any pretense at journalistic integrity.They were also boldly hypocritical. Soon after sending Meadows her text about Trump “destroying his legacy”, Ingraham went on air and talked about “antifa sympathizers” having been “sprinkled throughout the crowd” at the Capitol.The most critical lesson to leap out of the Meadows documents is that behind the scenes, in their private correspondence, Trump’s inner circle had no doubts about the nature and significance of the Capitol insurrection. It was an eruption of violence inspired and instigated by one man alone – Donald Trump – and only he could call it off.Meadows himself presumably has some valuable insights on that point. But at least for now he doesn’t seem to want to share them.TopicsMark MeadowsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More