Meadows was warned of Jan. 6 violence
WASHINGTON — Mark Meadows, the final chief of staff for President Donald Trump, was told that plans to try to overturn the 2020 election using socalled alternate electors were not “legally sound” and that the events of Jan. 6 could turn violent, but he pushed forward with a rally anyway, the House committee investigating the Capitol attack alleged in a Friday night court filing.
In the 248-page filing, lawyers for the committee highlighted the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a White House aide in Meadows’ office, who revealed new details about the events that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by a pro-Trump mob.
“I know that there were concerns brought forward to Mr. Meadows,” Hutchinson told investigators at a deposition March 7, adding: “I know that people had brought information forward to him that had indicated that there could be violence on the 6th. But, again, I’m not sure if he — what he did with that information.”
Hutchinson — who testified twice before the panel in closeddoor interviews in February and March — said Anthony Ornato, the former White House chief of operations, told Meadows that “we had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th. And Mr. Meadows said: All right. Let’s talk about it.”
“But despite this and other warnings, President Trump urged the attendees at the January 6th rally to march to the Capitol to ‘take back your country,’ ” Douglas Letter, the general counsel of the House, wrote in the filing.
The committee put forward the evidence Friday to try to persuade a federal judge in Washington to throw out Meadows’ suit against the panel. Meadows is trying to block the committee’s subpoenas, which he called “overly broad and unduly burdensome.”
In response, the committee laid out numerous ways its lawyers say Meadows was deeply involved in the effort to the overturn the 2020 election. Those included his work furthering a scheme to direct certain battleground states to put forward pro-Trump electors even though their voters had chosen Joe Biden and a pressure campaign in Georgia and other states to try to change the election outcome.
Citing Hutchinson’s testimony, the panel said it had evidence “that Mr. Meadows and certain congressmen were advised by White House counsel that efforts to generate false certificates did not comply with the law.”
Hutchinson told investigators that she heard lawyers from the White House Counsel’s Office say the plan for alternate electors was not “legally sound,” according to the filing.
“The select committee’s filing today urges the court to reject Mark Meadows’ baseless claims and put an end to his obstruction of our investigation,” the panel’s leaders, Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Liz Cheney, RWyo., said in a statement.
A lawyer for Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.