A member of Congress texted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the day after the violent Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection lamenting that it had been a “terrible day” … because their efforts to steal the election for Donald Trump had failed, according to new texts revealed by the House Jan. 6 select committee on Monday.
“Yesterday was a terrible day,” the lawmaker wrote in one of the text exchanges Meadows turned over to the committee. “We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked.”
The Jan. 6 panel, which unveiled the damning texts during a vote to recommend criminal contempt charges against Meadows, did not publicly identify the lawmaker who sent the message. A total of 147 lawmakers, all of them Republicans, voted against certifying the 2020 Electoral College results.
“The committee is not naming these lawmakers at this time, as our investigation is ongoing,” said committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA), who read the text aloud.
Schiff also presented another message from different unidentified lawmaker who had texted Meadows urging Vice President Mike Pence, who was slated to oversee Congress’ Electoral College vote certification on Jan. 6, to hijack the proceedings.
“On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all,” the lawmaker wrote.
Those texts were just some of Meadows’ shocking exchanges revealed by the committee on Monday. The panel also presented frantic texts from Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade and Sean Hannity during the insurrection pleading for Trump to call off the mob of his supporters as they were ransacking the Capitol.
“Mark, the President needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home,” Ingraham wrote. “This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
Ingraham would later go on the air that day to blame antifa for the Capitol attack, a preview of the right-wing media’s attempt to obscure how Trump had directly encouraged his enraged supporters to go to the Capitol.
Meadows voluntarily turned over his texts and emails to the Jan. 6 committee before defying the panel’s subpoena and refusing to show up for his scheduled hearing, claiming “executive privilege” despite already having handed over the texts. He is now suing the committee and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
