Mark Meadows indicated in a Jan. 5 email that the National Guard was on standby to “protect pro Trump people,” according to an email obtained by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot and described in a public document Sunday night.
The context for the message is unclear, but it comes amid intense scrutiny of the Guard’s slow response to violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and conflicting timelines about their response from the Pentagon and National Guard leadership.
The description of the message is part of a 51-page document released Sunday by the select panel a day before it is set to vote to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress. The full House is expected to vote to hold Meadows, former White House chief of staff to President Donald Trump, in criminal contempt of Congress on Tuesday.
In other messages described by the committee, Meadows appears to have asked members of Congress to help connect Trump with state lawmakers.
“POTUS wants to chat with them,” Meadows said, according to documents obtained by the Jan. 6 committee and described publicly Sunday evening.
The messages also describe numerous contacts with members of Congress about Trump’s efforts to recruit state lawmakers and encourage them to help overturn the election results. They also included questions about Meadows’ exchanges with members of Congress as they pressed him urgently to issue a statement telling rioters on Jan. 6 to exit the Capitol.
Meadows’ attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The messages are the clearest insight yet into the conversations Trump was having with senior advisers in the chaotic months after his defeat in which he sought to cling to power in increasingly desperate ways. Though Meadows turned over thousands of text messages and emails, he has declined to sit for a deposition to discuss those messages, claiming he is barred by executive privilege. The committee and Meadows had reached a tentative agreement for him to come in for an interview, but the pact collapsed last week.
Instead, the committee held a closed-door deposition without Meadows present and described the questions they would have asked him. The transcript of that closed session was appended to the panel’s contempt report, describing the details of the documents Meadows had provided.
“We would have asked him about text messages sent to and received from a Senator regarding the Vice President’s power to reject electors, including a text in which Mr. Meadows recounts a direct communication with President Trump who, according to Mr. Meadows in his text messages, quote, ‘thinks the legislators have the power, but the VP has power Too,’” the panel’s investigators noted.
The committee pointed out that many of the messages he shared already appeared to violate privilege by describing his own contacts with Trump. He also revealed many of those contacts in his recently released book.
The committee described a slew of other messages it obtained from Meadows including:
— Text messages with a “media personality” who had encouraged Trump to issue a statement asking those at the Capitol to “peacefully leave.”
— A text “sent to one of — by one of the President’s family members indicating that Mr. Meadows is, quote, ‘pushing hard,’ end quote, for a statement from President Trump to, quote, ‘condemn this shit.’”
— Texts in December 2020 regarding efforts to install Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general.
— Texts to and from a member of Congress in November 2020 seeking contact information for the attorney general of Arizona to discuss claims of election fraud.
— Texts to and from organizers of the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the violent attack on the Capitol.
— Texts “reflecting Mr. Meadows’ skepticism about public statements regarding allegations of election fraud put forth by Sidney Powell and his skepticism about the veracity of claims of tampering with Dominion voting machines.”
