How Mark Meadows Ended Up in the Middle of the Fight Over Jan. 6

How Mark Meadows Ended Up in the Middle of the Fight Over Jan. 6

WASHINGTON— Mark Meadows emerged as a central figure in a congressional probe into the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol after he turned over texts and emails that contained details on then-President Trump’s effort to overturn the election result—and that showed Mr. Meadows was on the receiving end of a barrage of messages and calls from allies trying to halt the pro-Trump riot. Mr. Meadows had earlier cooperated with the committee, submitting thousands of documents, including texts and material from a private email account. The records he turned over have opened up a window into a network of Republican objectors and their strategies for trying to overturn the election result, and this week’s public disclosure of some of his texts on the day of the attack drew new attention to the Jan. 6 probe. “These text messages leave no doubt that the White House knew exactly what was happening here at the Capitol,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.), the vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee.

(snip)

As early as Nov. 4—one day after Election Day—one unnamed lawmaker texted Mr. Meadows “HERE’s an AGGRESSIVE STRATEGY” and asked why states including Georgia, Pennsylvania and others with Republican-led legislatures couldn’t send alternate slates of electors to be certified by Congress, forcing the Supreme Court to sort out the conflict. Referring to state lawmakers with power over state election results, Mr. Meadows wrote “POTUS wants to chat with them.” ]Mr. Meadows’s texts with another lawmaker indicated that Mr. Trump had asked the lawmaker to call the governor of Arizona—one of the states that Mr. Biden won that was the subject of the Jan. 6 electoral-vote challenge.

Another text showed Mr. Meadows communicating with an unnamed Republican senator about Vice President Mike Pence’s power to reject electors certified by Congress, in which Mr. Meadows writes that Mr. Trump “thinks the legislators have the power, but the VP has the power too.” The next day, an unidentified lawmaker apologized to Mr. Meadows after Congress ultimately certified the results, including outcomes in several states narrowly won by Mr. Biden. “Yesterday was a terrible day,” the lawmaker texted. “We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked.”

(snip)

In the run-up to the 2020 election, Mr. Meadows had also become Mr. Trump’s emissary to the Justice Department, according to former administration officials. Mr. Trump was upset with then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who had blocked efforts to disrupt civil-rights protests with active duty military. Mr. Trump had largely stopped talking to Mr. Barr, and instead sent Mr. Meadows for regular check-ins for information on an investigation into the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe, these officials said. Mr. Meadows tested positive for Covid-19 after the November election and was quarantined until the middle of the month. By then, many senior officials had stopped coming into work or otherwise avoided the Oval Office, where Mr. Trump had become fixated on proving that he had only lost the race because of election fraud.

(snip)

Mr. Meadows left many administration officials with mixed signals about his role with Mr. Trump. When Mr. Trump erupted on Mr. Barr in a private meeting about the attorney general’s public pronouncement that there had been no widespread fraud, Mr. Meadows sat next to Mr. Trump and scowled, according to people familiar with the matter. His crossed arms and frequent head shakes suggested to others in the room that he was as upset as Mr. Trump. But Mr. Meadows called Mr. Barr and pleaded with him to remain on the job, these people said. When Mr. Barr pushed back against Mr. Trump’s claims in the meeting, Mr. Barr left White House officials worried that he was about to quit.

Mr. Barr agreed to stay on, but he resigned the following month. When he stepped down, Mr. Meadows helped introduce Mr. Trump to Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department attorney who had put together a secret plan to oust Mr. Barr’s replacement and help overturn the Georgia election results, according to Justice Department officials. According to West Wing aides, Mr. Meadows also helped connect Mr. Trump to Mark Martin, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice with a radical interpretation of the Constitution: Mr. Pence had the power to stop the certification of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-meadows-ended-up-in-the-middle-of-the-fight-over-jan-6-11639672775 (subscription)