Ex-aide describes Meadows burning documents

NEW YORK — A former aide in Donald Trump’s White House says chief of staff Mark Meadows burned papers so often after the 2020 election that it left his office smoky and even prompted his wife to complain that his suits smelled “like a bonfire.”

Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a prominent congressional witness against former president Trump before the House Jan. 6 committee, described the burning papers in a new book released Tuesday.

Hutchinson was a White House staffer in her 20s who worked for Meadows and testified for two hours on national television about the White House’s inner workings leading up to and including the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.

Trump and Meadows tried to challenge the former president’s election loss in several states. Both are under indictment in Georgia for what prosecutors have called an illegal conspiracy to overturn the results.

In her book, “Enough,” Hutchinson writes that starting in mid-December, Meadows wanted a fire burning in his office every morning. She says that when she would enter his office to take him lunch or a package, she “would sometimes find him leaning over the fire, feeding papers into it, watching to make sure they burned.”

Hutchinson had previously testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that she had seen Meadows burning documents in his office about a dozen times.

Hutchinson said she did not know what papers he was burning but said it raised alarms because federal law regarding presidential records requires staff to keep original documents and send them to the National Archives.

A message seeking comment from Meadows’s attorney was not returned Monday.