It was about 2 p.m. on January 6, 2021. Mark Meadows was sitting on the couch in his West Wing office, alone, scrolling through his cell phone. On the other side of Washington, White House supporters of President Donald Trump approached the Capitol to protest the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College.
“Are you watching TV, boss?” Cassidy Hutchinson, a chief aide to Mr. Meadows, the White House chief of staff, remembers asking him. “The rebels are really getting closer. Have you talked to the president? “
No, said Mr. Meadows, staring at his phone. Mr. Trump, he continued, “wants to be alone right now.”
Ms. Hutchinson’s account of the chief of staff, who was at best uninvolved and at worst affected by the events surrounding him, was a key part of her public appearance Tuesday at a hasty scheduled hearing by the House of Representatives committee. , investigating the Capitol riot and what led to it.
Another aide to Mr Meadows, Ben Williamson, gave a different assessment, saying in testimony before a House committee that Mr Meadows had reacted when Mr Williamson said he had a problem. “Any suggestion that he is not interested is ridiculous,” Mr Williamson said in a statement on Wednesday.
Ms Hutchinson’s lawyers said Wednesday that she was behind her testimony. But even without Ms. Hutchinson’s recollections, a number of Mr. Meadows’ former colleagues and people who interacted with him as the riot unfolded painted a portrait of an ineffective chief of staff as a scene of violence unfolded in the Capitol.
When he hired Mr. Meadows in March 2020, Mr. Trump happily told his allies that he had found his James A. Baker III, the White House chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, and the person many heirs have tried to emulate as the gold standard for governing the West Wing.
Yet within months, as the coronavirus pandemic raged and the economy Mr. Trump was proud of collapsed, Mr. Meadows became known to many of his colleagues as a man who spoke on both sides of his mouth. He encouraged Mr Trump’s aversion to calling for an increase in mask mandates, mocked scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and, according to former colleagues, fought petty battles internally with aides he believed did not follow power. mu.
But instead of playing the role of goalkeeper and bringing order to the chaotic West Wing, Mr Meadows has often been criticized by staff for being horrified by Mr Trump’s temper and eager to please him.
After the election, Mr. Meadows played a key role in encouraging Republicans in the House of Representatives to look for ways to undermine Mr. Biden’s victory.
Mr. Meadows called or texted Georgia Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger 18 times to arrange a conversation with Mr. Trump, and he traveled to the state to take a closer look at the inspection of voting machines. He had frequent contacts with Trump supporters who urged him to fight the result, including Virginia Thomas, the wife of Judge Clarence Thomas.
During his tenure, Mr. Meadows helped create a rift between Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, according to a handful of former White House officials, by engaging in tasks that the vice president will perform historically. Among other things, Mr. Meadows joined his trip to the Capitol with Amy Connie Barrett when she was nominated to the Supreme Court, a visit that Mr. Pence was expected to play an important role in the lead role, recalls a former White House Fellow.
“I think Mark often told me he was working to get the president to recognize and accept the election results,” Mark Short, a former Pence chief of staff, told Face the Nation on CBS News. soon.
“At the same time, it was clear that he was introducing many other people into the White House who were feeding the president with various conspiracy theories,” Mr Short said. “I think Mark told all sorts of different stories to different audiences.
On election night, as Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolf W. Giuliani, wanted to encourage the president to declare victory long before all the votes were counted, Mr Meadows and three other aides dismissed the idea as foolish. But days later, Mr. Meadows began exchanging messages with his former colleagues in the House.
“I love him,” Meadows said in response to a proposal from Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona, on November 5, 2020, about a plan to move the legislature to key states that Mr. Trump has lost. .nar. voters to be sent to Congress.
Within weeks of this text exchange, Mr. Meadows assured Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, that despite his repeated public statements that his election had been stolen, Mr. Trump would eventually accept the election.
At the same time, Mr. Meadows continued to admit people to the White House who encouraged Mr. Trump to take action that could undermine the election results. And he forwarded conspiracy theories about the election of senior administration officials to test them.
Yet on December 18, 2020, Mr. Meadows was among Trump’s advisers who opposed a group of outside Trump supporters – including Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser – who called on Mr. Trump to allow the government seizure of voting machines to search for electoral fraud.
Finally, Mr. Meadows continued to search for January 6, 2021, as the last option for Mr. Trump. However, as the events of that day unfolded, his colleagues said at the time, Mr Meadows seemed utterly devastated, sometimes to the point of paralysis. He reached out to Ivanka Trump to leave her office to try to beg her father to ask the rebels to stop, which she did, but it took her hours to get him to do so.
Key revelations from the January 6 hearings
Ms. Hutchinson described Mr. Meadows as aware that the situation the other day – since Mr. Trump was planning a rally he was tweeting – would be “wild” – could become “bad” among the most horrific parts of her. testimony about her former boss.
She also said that Mr Meadows had asked for pardon for himself at one point, something Mr Meadows’ current associate denied.
At another point during her appearance on Capitol Hill, Mrs. Hutchinson described a moment that seemed to capture Mr. Meadows’ desire to succumb to Mr. Trump’s wishes. She recalled picking up Mr. Meadows’ phone on January 6 after Mr. Meadows left his office to see Mr. Trump.
The representative, Jim Jordan of Ohio, was calling, and she brought the phone with her to connect with Mr. Meadows, she said. He picked it up, then joined her in his office with White House adviser Pat A. Chipolone and possibly another lawyer, Eric Hershman.
“I remember Pat saying something like Mark, we need to do more,” she said, noting that the crowd chanted for Mr. Pence to be hanged.
Mr. Meadows, she said, responded to the effect: “You heard it, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it, “given Mr. Trump’s feelings for Mr. Pence. “He does not think they are doing anything wrong.
Add Comment