Mark Meadows told Trump aide to stay away from meeting with GOP lawmakers who plotted overturning 2020: testimony
Mark Meadows speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
December 20, 2022
Newly uncovered testimony reveals that Nick Luna, a former White House aide to President Donald Trump, told the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots that former chief of staff Mark Meadows had instructed him to stay away from a meeting between the then-president and state Republican lawmakers who supported overturning the 2020 election.
In the testimony, which was obtained by CBS News, Luna told the committee that Meadows shooed him away from a meeting Trump was having with Republicans who backed his efforts to throw out certified election results so he could remain in power.
"There was one instance where it would normally be my job to go in and make sure that [the] president is comfortable in wherever the situation is," Luna told the committee. "And I remember, specifically, this instance [Meadows] had said, 'Do not, don't come in, don't come into the room today."
Luna said he did not know why Meadows did not want him in the room, however.
RELATED: Cassidy Hutchinson was advised by a Trump-backed lawyer to 'mislead' the J6 Committee: report
Additionally, Luna told the committee that he saw Trump tear up documents, even though the Presidential Records Act states that White House documents are to be carefully handled and preserved.
"Did I ever see him tear up notes? I don't know what the documents were but there [was] tearing," he said.