Congressional officials read Mark Meadows' new book — and they have questions about what he revealed: report

It has been less than a month since former chief of staff Mark Meadows published his tell-all book about his time in the White House. According to a new report from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack and the lead-up to it, some of those passages in his book have prompted questions.

The 52-page report details many of the communications Meadows had with Jan. 6 event organizers, elected members of Congress he pushed for contacts in their state who could help former President Donald Trump and more.

"Through counsel, Mr. Meadows agreed," to appear before the committee for questions, the report detailed. "Meadows produced a large number of responsive documents that were not subject to any claim of privilege while withholding many others. But the day before his deposition, Mr. Meadows changed course once more and told the Select Committee that he would not be attending his deposition, after all, even to answer questions about the documents that he agrees are relevant and non-privileged that he had just produced. He did this even though that very same day his book was released in which he re-counts specific conversations that he had with former-President Trump, including conversations about whether the former President planned to join a march to the United States Capitol on January 6 after encouraging rally-goers to do so."

In the excerpts, the committee explained they had questions about a conversation Meadows with Trump that left them scratching their heads.

"How do we look in Congress?” Trump asked Meadows, according to his book. "I’ve heard that there are some Republicans who might be turning against us. That would be a very unwise thing for them to do."

Another incident quoted the fact that Trump changed his Jan. 6 speech that was written for him from the podium. It isn't unusual for Trump to go off on a tangent during a rally, but the comments made by Trump on Jan. 6 aren't attacks on the news media or a snide nickname he invented.

‘‘A few sentences later," reads Meadows' book, "President Trump ad-libbed a line that no one had seen before, saying, ‘Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down—and I’ll be there with you—we’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength. You have to be strong.'"

Meadows then said that when Trump got off the stage, he made it clear that he had no intention of walking to the Capitol, knowing that it was impossible to organize the security for something like that.

Another excerpt the Jan. 6 committee found compelling is a comment in which Meadows makes clear that Trump knew the Jan. 6 attack was a "terrible incident."

At one point in Trump's crusade to change the 2020 election result, Meadows quoted Trump saying, "'Mark,' Trump would say to me, 'Look, if I lost, I’d have no problem admitting it. I would sit back and retire and probably have a much easier life, but I didn’t lose. People need me to get back to work. We’re not done yet.'"

Members said that they have questions about that as well as another passage in which Meadows claimed everything would be fine in the second impeachment trial and that the two "discussed what my role in the proceedings would be after we left the White House."

Trump also had interactions with the Department of Justice that has prompted questions among members. Over the course of two pages, Meadows describes, ‘"It didn’t surprise me that our many referrals to the Department of Justice were not seriously investigated. I never believed they would, given the track record of that Department in President Trump’s first term."

In another incident, Meadows remarks in his book that Trump sounded as if he wasn't planning to go anywhere.

"These passages reflect direct communications between Mr. Meadows and President Trump directly impacting his claims of executive privilege," said the committee in their report.

You can read the full Jan. 6 committee report here.