Capitol Insurrection Texts Are Another Piece of the Puzzle
It’s better late than never. After a year of media reporting on misdirection, misinformation, and flat out denials about what happened on January 6, 2021, the slow but steady work of the House Select Committee is beginning to yield results the public can see.
The committee has heard testimony from more than 300 witnesses, with additional ones scheduled to appear this week.Yeah, I know it’s not fast enough, but that’s the system we’re stuck with and complaining on Twitter won’t make it happen any time sooner.
Evidence released in anticipation of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows referral for criminal prosecution has provided yet another look into the workings of an administration desperate to stay in power.
Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina who led the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, essentially served as Mr. Trump’s right-hand man throughout various steps of the effort to undermine the 2020 election, according to the Select Committee..
They also say he encouraged members of Congress to object to Biden, pursued baseless allegations of voter fraud in several states,and personally coordinated with January 6 rally planners. Meadows promised to line up the National Guard to protect “Trump supporters” according to documents he provided to the panel.
https://twitter.com/TomJChicago/status/1470388344626495492?s=20
A series of texts sent by Fox anchors to Meadows were read aloud in a Congressional panel investigating the insurrection, part of about 9,000 documents submitted by Meadows to the inquiry. At the moment, all these players seem to realize the gravity of the situation, yet all of them have pivoted to promote the various excuses/conspiracies of what happened at the US Capitol.
Laura Ingraham texted: “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us.” When she went on the air that night the falsehood about antifa leading the charge dominated the account.
Donald Trump, Jr, Sean Hannity, and Brian Kilmeade were all texting Meadows because their other attempts to reach out to the president weren’t being acknowledged or answered. The Select Committee is seeking another 1,000 text messages between Meadows and members of Congress during the same time frame.
https://twitter.com/duty2warn/status/1470801853965168640?s=20
After putting on a pretense of cooperation following subpoenas issued three months ago, Meadows continually reduced the scope of what he would agree to discuss. Whether it's true or not, some media accounts say his non-cooperation decision followed learning about subpoenas being served for the metadata associated with his phone records at Verizon.
UPDATE: The identities of Republican lawmakers and aides linked to the Capitol riot by documents provided by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will soon be revealed by House investigators, a key congressman said Monday.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, told reporters that the documents were “quite revealing.”
Another big deal coming out of the committee’s interactions with Meadows concerned a 38-page Powerpoint presentation detailing ways in which the-Vice President Pence could refuse to recognize electors supporting Joe Biden, allowing him to declare Trump the “winner” either by counting only some of the states, or by seating alternate slates of electors.
From NBC News:
The presentation includes baseless assertions that China and Venezuela took control of the U.S. electoral system and that there was widespread voter fraud in eight states.
It calls for the Trump administration to "declare electronic voting in all states invalid," as well as to declare a national emergency and seize ballots.
More relevant to Jan. 6 — the date the Constitution sets out for the official counting of Electoral College votes, a step that affirms a president-elect's victory — the document called for then-Vice President Mike Pence to seat alternate electors from swing states Trump lost, reject electors from those states or delay the formal count.
There are apparently several versions of this document which was circulated among members of Congress prior to January 6.
The author of that Powerpoint stated he met directly with Meadows in the White House and spoke with Trump’s chief of staff “maybe eight to 10 times.” Meadows claims he didn’t act on the presentation.
One point here worth mentioning; the document had the President declaring a national emergency. I believe they were expecting to use the presence of counter demonstrators on January 6 as the basis for such an order.
Two January 6 rally organizers, Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence have told Rolling Stone they will cooperate with the investigation.
The pair will deliver testimony and turn over documents, including text messages, that indicate the extensive involvement members of Congress and the Trump administration had in planning the House challenge to certifying Biden’s election and rally near the White House where Donald Trump spoke — efforts that ultimately contributed to a massive and violent attack on the Capitol.
Looking back at the time period between the election and the Capitol Hill insurgency, there were plenty of warning signs along the way, the most significant of which was a Washington Post op-ed urging President Donald Trump to refrain from using the military to interfere in the 2020 election signed by all 10 living former US defense secretaries — both Republicans and Democrats.
As my friend Jim Miller pointed out in this space earlier this week, January 6 was not the end of the insurrection; it was the first act in an ongoing drama, one where the fate of democracy is at stake.
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