Top aides never witnessed Meadows willing to tell Trump he was wrong: report
Washington Post reporter Michael Kranish penned an extensive report on former chief of staff Mark Meadows and his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.
While Meadows wrote his own book, he didn't detail much about the day, much less his attempts to pressure Georgia officials to change the 2020 election results in the state. One piece of the memoir claims that the hardest part of the job as former President Donald Trump's chief of staff was being the one who told trump when he was wrong.
Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Monday, Kranish said that from his interviews, Meadows was either lying or he spoke with Trump only in private.
"I asked a lot of White House officials if they were aware of him doing that and they had not, and what I think is significant in the story is even after Dec. 14, when the states certified their electors, which would then be going to Congress on Jan. 6," said Kranish. "Mark Meadows met at the White House and met up with Trump and members of congress who wanted to push this and then he tweeted that they were still looking into these allegations over voter fraud. This was after the Dec. 14 phone call and Joe Biden on victory and even after that very significant date."
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Wallace noted that it was also after Attorney General Bill Barr spoke with the Associated Press, and with the president and Meadows, and said that there was no fraud and Trump lost. Barr ultimately resigned before the Christmas holiday. Trump later confessed he pressured Barr to take the fall for the failures of the over 60 lawsuits about the 2020 election.
"So he (Meadows) was playing a very central role," said Kranish. "Was he conveying at every point what Trump wanted him to do? That's something that he would have to answer if he was on your show, but clearly, he was doing this and putting it out on Twitter and emails that we now have access to and saying it in text messages that we have thanks to court filings as soon as two weeks ago."
New York Times reporter Luke Broadwater pointed out the question he has is why Meadows initially cooperated with the Jan. 6 committee, but then stopped.
"One thing i think that's important to note is that he doesn't turn over all his text messages," Broadwater explained. "Many of the text messages that have come out have included explosive material that we write about and the Post has written about and you talk about on the show. But there's a lot that he held back, right? And so that is going to be the material that Mark Meadows thought was the most sensitive that he thought was protected by executive privilege and he never gives that to the committee in the first place."
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He also said that Meadows and his lawyer were trying to give the House Select Committee enough information to keep them "happy" and to avoid a contempt of Congress charge. Then the book came out and the former president stepped in.
"Then the book comes out, and there was some reporting that [Trump] was displeased that Mark Meadows was cooperating and he was writing this book and now all of a sudden [Meadows] stops cooperating and refuses to give any more information to the committee, and he refuses to come in for an interview as promised."
Broadwater spoke to members of Congress who said that they believe the pressure from Trump got Meadows to stop cooperating.
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