If there were ever any truly damning evidence against former President Donald Trump in connection to his major role in inciting the January 6th Capitol attack, this is it.
Mark Meadows, the former president’s old Chief of Staff, has recently lodged a lawsuit against the January 6th House Select Committee over what he claims is an overly broad subpoena from the panel to appear before them and deliver his testimony regarding his knowledge of the January 6th events, as well as the days leading up to the violent attack and attempted coup. However, thanks to that lawsuit, a whole lot of details are coming out about Meadows and others from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson — and they’re absolutely damning for Trump and his peoples’ cases.
Hutchinson gave a deposition back in March as part of the investigation, but the details of what she revealed were only just now released late Friday night. In her deposition, the former Trump White House aide revealed that the U.S. Secret Service gave the Trump White House multiple clear, concise warnings about the impending violence at the U.S. Capitol, when Congress and the vice president would be inside to certify the Electoral College votes in Joe Biden’s favor.
“I just remember Mr. Ornato coming in and saying that we had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th. And Mr. Meadows said: ‘All right. Let’s talk about it,'” Hutchinson said at the time, referring to the U.S. Secret Service special agent in charge Anthony Ornato.
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In their court filing on Friday, responding to Mark Meadows’ lawsuit, the January 6th House Select Committee cited Hutchinson’s previous deposition.
“But despite this and other warnings, President Trump urged the attendees at the Jan. 6th rally to march to the Capitol to ‘take back your country,'” the court filing reads. “Despite urgent pleas from Capitol Hill and from many of President Trump’s supporters, President Trump did not act immediately to publicly ask or instruct the violent rioters [to] leave the Capitol.”
The new court filing goes on to state that then-President Trump clearly did not contact or reach out to the Department of Defense that day to dispatch any help to control or avoid the violence.
“It is also now clear that Mr. Trump never telephoned his Secretary of Defense that day to order deployment of National Guard, and never contacted any federal law enforcement agency to order security assistance to the Capitol Police,” the panel’s filing reads. “Information received by the Select Committee indicates that Mr. Trump was in the dining room, watching on his TV, and did not urge his supporters to leave the Capitol for over three hours. And even at 4:17 p.m. when he released a video, President Trump told those in the Capitol ‘we love you. You’re very special,’ and at 6:01 p.m. he tweeted, ‘Remember this day forever!'”
“Certain text communications with Members of Congress suggest that Mr. Meadows himself ‘pushed’ for Vice President Pence to take unilateral action to reject the counting of electoral votes on January 6th,” the panel states in the document.
They also go on to cite Rep. Scott Perry’s text message conversations with Mark Meadows.
“And while Mr. Trump’s widely publicized call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was ongoing, Mr. Meadows exchanged text messages regarding the call with another member of the Georgia government,” the document states. “In addition, Mr. Meadows communicated repeatedly by text with Congressman Scott Perry regarding a plan to replace Department of Justice leadership in the days before January 6th.”
You can read the full bombshell court filing right here.
Featured image via U.S. Air National Guard photo by Dale Greer
