Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly produced text messages and emails that show he was “exchanging with a wide range of individuals while the attack was underway” to the Jan. 6 committee, according to CNN.
Meadows reportedly handed over messages on his personal cell phone and email account voluntarily to the committee, without any claim of executive privilege. According to CNN, the messages Meadows provided relate to “what Donald Trump was doing and not doing during the riot.”
CNN noted that the communications Meadows produced to the committee offer insight into what people were texting him on the day of the deadly Capitol insurrection, what he was telling them about former President Trump in real time, and Trump’s whereabouts during the hours that his supporters breached the Capitol and chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”
CNN’s report of the texts and emails that Meadows has handed over to the committee comes two days after committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) detailed in a letter the materials that Meadows has offered up thus far during his short-lived stint of engaging with the committee. Thompson said that the communications include documenting an early White House effort to push for the appointment of “alternate slates of electors” on the day networks called Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
According to Thompson, Meadows handed over text messages to the committee that include a Nov. 6 message from an unnamed member of Congress who texted Meadows about appointing alternate slates of electors in certain states. The lawmaker, Thompson said, acknowledged that doing so would be “highly controversial” — to which Meadows allegedly replied “I love it.”
Additionally, Thompson wrote that other text messages produced by Meadows include an early January text exchange between Meadows and an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rally held hours before the Capitol insurrection and text messages about the need for Trump to issue a public statement to put an end to the attack.
Thompson also wrote that Meadows provided the committee with an email from Jan. 5 regarding a 38-page PowerPoint briefing titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN” that was to be provided “on the hill” and another email on Jan. 5 about having the National Guard on standby during the joint session of Congress certifying Biden’s electoral victory.
On Wednesday, Meadows sued the Jan. 6 Committee, its members and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) after the panel informed Meadows’ lawyer that it has been “left with no choice” but to advance contempt proceedings against his client, following the panel’s warning that Meadows will be referred for criminal contempt if he failed to show up for his deposition.
In addition to reporting on Meadows’ communications while the Capitol insurrection was underway, CNN reported on Thursday that although a handful of Trump loyalists have defied the committee, there are “many people every week coming in to testify and produce documents.” In some instances, “multiple people a day” appear before the committee, according to CNN.
Although the committee has said that it has subpoenaed about 40 individuals thus far, CNN reported that there are a large number of additional subpoenas that have not been disclosed publicly and that the witnesses who have been subpoenaed are “names we will recognize” and are likely to become public eventually.
