Meadows Backed Trump Lie About 2:21 Insurrection
(CNN) -
Donald Trump Jr. was frantic.
The Fox News personalities who now dismiss the violence in the United States Capitol were begging the White House to do something.
On January 6, then-President Donald Trump was not listening to his children or his media enablers.
"You have to condemn this s **** as soon as possible," Trump's eponymous son and top cheerleader told then-White House Secretary General Mark Meadows via text message that day.
Representative Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6, read the text aloud Monday night as the commission met to advance contempt of Congress charges against Meadows. It was one of a series of messages the former North Carolina congressman received from Trump Jr. and many others who now downplay the severity of the insurrection. But that day, they were crying out in private for a statement in the Oval Office or anything from Trump to get the rioters to stand down. Still, the then president did nothing as the looting of the Capitol continued.
By unveiling these messages, the House panel pierced the fog of amnesia that allowed conservative pundits and many Republicans to forget how dire the Capitol uprising felt in real time, while dealing a blow to the claims of Mark Meadows that he shouldn't have to testify before the commission.
Trump may have been the great voice that perpetuated the lie about the 2020 presidential election, but what is clear from Monday's proceeding and other reports dripping from the investigation is that a lot of people were involved in his circle, which it only becomes more evident and important as the investigation lengthens.
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Liz Cheney asks if Trump organized attack on Capitol 1:13
Go public with the case against Mark Meadows
After months of behind-the-scenes investigation, the commissioners publicly laid out their extraordinary case that Mark Meadows was an accessory to the insurrection and began the process to try to get him to speak.
"We cannot be satisfied with incomplete answers or half truths," Cheney said after reading from the text messages.
"And we cannot give in to President Trump's efforts to hide what happened."
The Wyoming legislator is one of only two Republicans on the panel.
Meadows reportedly promised that "they would have protection from the National Guard on January 6"
At the special television hearing, convened during prime time, the commission voted to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress.
The full House could intervene Tuesday, when members vote whether contempt charges are filed against someone with whom many of them served in Congress.
The Justice Department could initiate criminal proceedings against Meadows, as well as Steve Bannon, who was involved in a command center at the nearby Willard Hotel, where Trump supporters allegedly hatched the effort to overturn the election and prepared to the rally on January 6.
Mark Meadows, unlike Bannon, was in the White House with Trump, receiving messages from Fox personalities like Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade and from members of Congress who were not appointed by the commission Monday night.
It could give the commission first-hand knowledge of why the then-president ignored his family and Sean Hannity and let the revolt continue for hours.
Facilitators of the insurrection in Congress
One of the unidentified lawmakers apologized the day after the revolt on Capitol Hill for failing to prevent the counting of electoral votes in the key states that Trump lost.
"We tried everything we could in our objection to the six states," Meadows was told, according to a message read by Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat on the commission.
"I'm sorry nothing worked."
Mark Meadows no longer wants to appear against Trump 1:22
Another lawmaker texted Meadows before January 6 insisting that then-Vice President Mike Pence reject the electoral votes, repeating back to the White House the proposal that was allegedly raised in a disputed 38-page power point presentation. which was considered a recipe for a coup.
"On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, should call all electoral votes that he considers unconstitutional as if there were no electoral votes," the legislator told Meadows, according to the commission.
Meadows had backed down in recent weeks and stopped cooperating with the commission, but not before delivering the text messages and communications that commission members used against him on Monday.
He also published a memoir describing being with Trump in the White House during the Capitol riots.
Commission investigating Capitol robbery votes to recommend charges against Mark Meadows for contempt
Even if there are communications that would be protected by executive privilege, as Meadows argues, Schiff said that these things that he already offered to the commission or wrote about to sell his book cannot be.
After investigation
What is not clear is where things are going.
The commission will try to create a definitive record of the insurrection, including the original reaction of some Republicans who tried to move and Fox News anchors unmasked by their text messages.
But while Monday's hearing was aimed at making a public case, the Fox audience isn't likely to know much about it.
Democrats could lose control of the House next November, meaning the commission has a year to complete its work.
Mark Meadows might as well let the time go by.
Bannon's contempt of congressional trial, for example, won't be held until July.
President Joe Biden also showed interest in trying to overcome the ills of the previous administration and build a legacy of new government programs rather than simply being the man who protects the country from Trump, who appears to be preparing for a comeback in 2024.
That's a messaging dilemma the rest of Biden's party is grappling with heading into 2022. Democrats seem unable to figure out how to motivate voters around threats to democracy in an election that does not feature the Trump's name on the ballot.
"We have to be Paul Revere whenever we can to let people know what is at risk and why it is at risk. We live it. Every time we eat breakfast we think about these things. I don't think you can be too worried about this. "Washington State Governor Jay Inslee told CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere at a meeting of the Democratic Governors Association over the weekend.
But Inslee also seemed to acknowledge that voters might not understand how close the United States came to the end of its democracy were it not for Pence rejecting the effort.
"The American psyche has not recognized that we were a vice president of a coup," he said.
Donald Trump Mark Meadows
