There is no conceivable way that Mark Meadows came up with the idea to overturn the election nor the specific means, at least not in our opinion. We doubt that any American is confused as to who led the effort, whether they believe the effort to be criminal or heroic. But just as Trump always seems to find a way to keep his hands just clean enough to avoid prosecution, Mark Meadows may have been his mark in this scheme.

If there is a person arrested with respect to the attempted-coup (and the fact that it’s becoming a question is infuriating Mr. Attorney General), Mark Meadows might well be the one arrested first. There is certainly a lot of circumstantial evidence.

Just Security set out a timeline of events Mark Meadows undertook in the aftermath of the election that nearly convict him from the list alone. As examples:

A. Meadows and Giuliani created a “parallel track” to raise election fraud claims
B. Meadows introduced President Trump to DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, who was plotting to oust the acting attorney general and use the Justice Department to overturn election results in Georgia.
C. Meadows made a surprise visit to Georgia where he met with the Secretary of State’s lead elections investigator. Trump called her the next day on Meadow’s suggestion and in the call urged her to find fraud in Fulton County.
D. Meadows arranged and participated in the call in which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes”; and during the call Meadows asked the Georgia officials to share voting data even after they told him they could not because it was protected by law.
E. In several communications with the Justice Department—in violation of White House and DOJ contacts policies—Meadows pressured the Department to investigate baseless allegations of election fraud.
F. Then-Acting Secretary of Defense’s chief of staff Kash Patel says he spoke to Meadows “nonstop” on Jan. 6

Not to mention the fact that Meadows spent the last three days of Trump’s term trying to arrange pre-emptive pardons for himself, Giuliani, and Trump. If those pardons exist, only Trump knows, and no one knows if they do any good.

As Just Security Sets out in the deeper explanations, and to give the reader an idea as to how ducksh*t insane Meadows was at the time:

At 3:08 PM, Meadows sends Rosen an email containing a link to a Youtube video, which is now unavailable, with the subject line: “Brad Johnson: Rome, Satellites, Servers: an Update- Youtube.” Rosen forwards the email to Acting Deputy Attorney General Donoghue, who responds at 3:39 PM saying, “Pure Insanity.” In the video, former CIA station chief, Brad Johnson, reportedly discusses “Italygate,” a conspiracy theory that individuals working for an Italian defense contractor collaborated with the CIA to change the election result.

At 4:13 PM, Meadows emails Rosen again saying, “There have been allegations of signature match anomalies in Fulton county, Ga.  Can you get Jeff Clark to engage on this issue immediately to determine if there is any truth to this allegation” (no question mark in the original) (emphasis added). Rosen forwards the email to Donoghue noting that he is not going to respond to Meadows. “Can you believe this?  I am not going to respond to the message below,” the acting attorney general writes.

The White House Chief of Staff is just that. He is the boss of all the people working within the White House, as such, he is the last “policy” official that the president talks to on any given day. But he (or she) is not involved in anything concerning policy that goes on outside, especially DOJ, or the damned Georgia Secretary of State. And what was the White House Chief of Staff talking to DOD’s Chief of Staff on January 6th about? All day?

Protection of the Capitol would seem to fall upon the President and the Secretary of Defense, unless Trump was trying to keep his hands clean. For some reason.

The investigative committee should call Mark Meadows, as its next witness. Unfortunately, he is the witness who likely has the strongest executive privilege claim… but he cannot claim it while speaking to the Georgia Secretary of State or…

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