How Mark Meadows may have been instrumental in the Jan. 6 attack

The role of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in Donald Trump's efforts is examined in a new book by veteran journalists Peter Baker of The New York Times and his wife, Susan Glasser, of The New Yorker.

The book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, was previewed by Glasser in her "Letter from Biden's Washington" column.

"Meadows and his two different personas are at the center of many of the controversies lingering since Trump’s tumultuous exit from office. The January 6th committee has discovered this duality. Meadows at first agreed to coöperate with the panel but then abruptly stopped after Trump castigated him for publishing a memoir, The Chief’s Chief, which airbrushed their history—though not sufficiently for Trump. The former President was furious with Meadows for revealing his lies, which Trump dismissed as 'Fake News,' to the public about the seriousness and timing of his October, 2020, bout with Covid," Glasser wrote.

The two found that Jan. 6 might not have happened were it not for Meadows.

"Meadows’ remarkable ability, even for a politician, to do one thing while saying another has also been the subject of running news reports. My colleague Charles Bethea disclosed, in The New Yorker, that Trump’s chief of staff was publicly alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election while apparently committing voter fraud himself."

READ: ‘Cutthroat infighter’: New book reveals how Meadows ‘told both sides what they wanted to hear’ during coup attempt

"Meadows registered to vote by absentee ballot in September, 2020, from a mobile home in North Carolina which he had never visited. North Carolina’s authorities have removed Meadows from the state’s voter rolls and are investigating his actions," she wrote. "In many ways, Meadows’s skill for obfuscation has delayed an inevitable reckoning about his role in enabling Trump’s post-election conduct. But the evidence is now much clearer that Meadows’s actions in the White House at this crucial moment not only mattered but might well have been decisive. It’s very possible, in fact, that the tragedy of January 6th might never have happened had it not been for Trump’s final chief of staff."

The two also reported that Meadows "consolidated power" and excluded then-Vice President Mike Pence from meetings.