Former President Donald Trump’s last White House chief of chief, Mark Meadows, was warned by the Secret Service that violence could occur when a Joint Session of Congress gathered on Jan. 6, 2021, to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, new court filings show.
Meadows and several Republican members of Congress also were advised by a White House lawyer that a fringe plan to create “alternate” slates of presidential electors to block Biden’s win wasn’t “legally sound,” but pressed on, according to the filings Friday night from the House Select Committee probing the U.S. Capitol riot.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant in the Trump White House, told the committee about Meadows during a March 7 interview, “I don’t want to speculate whether or not he perceived them as genuine concerns, but I know that people had brought information forward to him that had indicated that there could be violence on the 6th.”
That newly released witness transcript and other exhibits were part of a 248-page committee filing in a legal battle taking place in federal court in the District of Columbia over whether Meadows is immune from congressional subpoenas to testify to the committee.
Meadows, who already has been found in contempt of Congress for his subpoena defiance, filed a lawsuit arguing the House committee’s subpoenas lack valid legislative power and violate longstanding constitutional principles of executive privilege and immunity. But the Jan. 6 committee on Friday sought a summary judgment dismissing those claims.
“It’s essential that the American people fully understand Mr. Meadows’s role in events before, on, and after January 6th,” said the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in a statement released in conjunction with the committee’s court filing. “His attempt to use the courts to cover up that information must come to an end.”
A question the committee is looking into is whether Trump, Meadows and others in Trump’s circle knew that a plan to submit the so-called alternate presidential elector slates from seven states was unlawful. The idea was for former Vice President Mike Pence to introduce those illegitimate electors on Jan. 6 and use them to block Biden’s victory, but he did not do so.
Hutchinson, according to the transcript of her committee interview filed Friday, said Meadows and Rudy Giuliani, a Trump legal advisor, and unnamed others were told by then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollone at a meeting in early December 2020 the plan was not legally sound. Trump was not depicted as in that meeting.
“And so, to be clear, did you hear the White House Counsel’s Office say that this plan to have alternate electors meet and cast votes for Donald Trump in States that he had lost was not legally sound?” Hutchinson was asked.
She replied, “Yes, sir.”
Hutchinson also said the plan also came up in later meetings, including those involving several members of Congress. She described some as “kind of pushing back” when told of the legal dubiousness of the plan. She mentioned by name GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Hutchinson told the committee she did not know what Meadows did with the information he received in “early January 2021” of potential Jan. 6 trouble. But she described Anthony Ornato, an official with the Secret Service, “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.”
“And I believe they went to the office for maybe 5 minutes. It was very quick,” she said, according to the transcript.
George Terwilliger, a lawyer representing Meadows, could not immediately be reached for comment.
