Over the last several months, the American people have gained access to the content contained in some of the 2,319 text messages that were turned over to the January 6th House Select Committee by Donald Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, in connection to the committee’s ongoing investigation into the infamous, violent Capitol attack, and the ex-president’s specific role in not only inciting it but refusing to stop it. However, while we were aware of what many of the messages to Meadows said, the American people have remained largely in the dark when it comes to who sent them to the then-Chief of Staff.
That is… Until now.
A bombshell report from CNN is now shedding new light on many of the Republican lawmakers who were behind many of the panicked, frantic text messages that were penned to Mark Meadows as the infamous Capitol insurrection was underway after the House Select Committee began releasing new details today.
South Carolina Republican House Rep. Jeff Duncan was behind one message to Meadows that read, “POTUS needs to calm this sh*t down.”
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Duncan was one of several GOP legislators who stood in support of blocking the Electoral College count on January 6th, 2021. The South Carolina lawmaker has long been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump’s despite, like so many of his fellow party members, expressing anger about the then-president’s role in the deadly Capitol attack in private text messages, behind closed doors.
Texas House Rep. Chip Roy was once an enthusiastic supporter of the plan to block the Electoral College certification, but ultimately reversed course when he came to realize that evidence of the fraud Donald Trump and his people were claiming simply did not exist. Roy sent a similarly-toned message to Meadows on the day the now-ex-president’s supporters violently stormed the Capitol building.
“Fix this now,” Chip wrote in a text message to Meadows that has now been made fully public by the House Panel.
Former communications aide Alyssa Farah Griffin has spoken out on ABC’s The View, confirming that she appeared before the House Select Committee to deliver her testimony not once, but twice, and explained that the panel members had extremely pointed questions for her.
“I thought the President could stop it and was the only person who could stop it,” Farrah Griffin explained during her appearance on the show. The former communications aide had already left the White House a month before the riot when Donald Trump had begun to peddle his baseless Big Lie.
“When he finally tweeted something hours and hours later, there are reports of people inside the building saying, ‘He’s saying to go home.’ They would have listened to him,” she explained.
Griffin was revealed as the author of one of the messages sent to Meadows on January 6th that read, “Potus has to come out firmly and tell protesters to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed.”
Even former Trump Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was revealed to have reached out to Meadows, writing, “Mark: he needs to stop this, now. Can I do anything to help?”
Mulvaney later spoke to CNN on the topic and said, “I wish someone had responded to my outreach.”
CNN cited one senior Republican who stated, “I thought there was only one person who could stop it and that was the President. I don’t know that I can think of another situation that was as grave for the nation, or as affecting for the nation, where the President didn’t say something.”
An associate of Mark Meadows’ said that Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff let the ordeal go on for far too long.
“Two hours is just inexcusable … when the safety of the federal government is in question you have the duty immediately to speak out. And Trump was derelict in that duty,” the insider told CNN.
If the Republicans weren’t squirming before, we can all but guarantee they are now.
Read the full report at CNN here.
Featured image via Flickr/White House public domain
