January 6 Committee Votes Unanimously To Hold Mark Meadows In Contempt Of Congress (Updated)

Update to Mark Meadows Was The Point Man For Trump’s Coup D’Etat Ahead Of January 6 (Updated).

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol voted unanimously to hold former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress, but the panel discussion before the vote revealed where the January 6 Committee is headed next: Republican members of Congress who were coconspirators in the seditious insurrection. Rep. Liz Cheney fired a shot over the bow of Fox News personalities who were collaborators, essentially letting them know “we have your texts.”

As Hillary Clinton once said, accurately, “there is a vast right-wing conspiracy” behind this failed MAGA/QAnon coup d’etat on January 6. It is the entire Republican Party apparatus and its media propaganda collaborators.

The Washington Post reports, House Jan. 6 committee votes to hold Meadows in contempt, details texts from Trump allies who wanted him to call off rioters:

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol voted Monday night to hold former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena, while also releasing a series of texts from Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr. urging Meadows to implore President Donald Trump to call off the violent mob.

The seven Democrats and two Republicans tasked with investigating the insurrection all supported the resolution that could be taken up by the full House as soon as Tuesday.

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“History will not look upon you as a victim. History will not dwell on your long list of privilege claims or your legal sleight of hand,” the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), said of Meadows and others who are refusing to cooperate. “History will record that in a critical moment in our democracy, most people were on the side of finding the truth, of providing accountability, of strengthening our system for future generations. And history will also record, in this critical moment, that some people were not.”

Some of the most dramatic evidence presented Monday night involved texts from allies of the president urging Meadows to get Trump to stop the rioters.

I think much of the media missed the point of this: Rep. Liz Cheney was firing a shot over the bow of Fox News personalities who were collaborators, essentially letting them know “we have your texts,” not just from January 6, but over the two previous months back to Election Day. You could almost hear their butts pucker.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the panel’s vice chair, read through texts to Meadows from Fox News hosts as well as Trump Jr., imploring Meadows to get his father to “condemn this s— Asap. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough.”

“I’m pushing it hard,” Meadows responded. “I agree.”

“We need an Oval address,” Trump Jr. wrote back. “He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”

Several Fox News hosts also urged Meadows to get the president on TV or make some kind of statement while he remained silent in the White House as members of the mob assaulted police officers, chanted things like “Hang Mike Pence” and menaced members of Congress.

“Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home … this is hurting all of us … he is destroying his legacy,” wrote Laura Ingraham.

Brian Kilmeade also chimed in. “Please get him on tv,” he texted Meadows. “Destroying everything you have accomplished.”

And Trump friend and popular Fox News host Sean Hannity simply asked Meadows: “Can he make a statement? … Ask people to leave the Capitol.”

CNN host John King on Tuesday exposed the hypocrisy of Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Brian Kilmeade and Laura Ingraham, who privately called for then-President Donald Trump to ask rioters to go home on Jan. 6. ‘They’re not journalists’: CNN juxtaposes Fox News hosts’ texts with their on-air comments on Jan. 6:

During a panel discussion on CNN, King played clips that juxtaposed texts the hosts sent to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows with statements the same hosts made on the air on the evening of Jan. 6.

“The president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” Ingraham wrote in a text message to Meadows.

But on the air that night, the Fox News host downplayed the violence.

“It was not a terrorist attack,” Ingraham told her audience on Jan. 6. “It wasn’t 9/11, it wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to America, it wasn’t an insurrection.”

Bullshit, you Eva Braun fascist propaganda collaborator.

King also looked at a text from Fox News host Brian Kilmeade [without a doubt the stupidest man on television.]

“Please get him on TV… destroying everything you have accomplished,” Kilmeade texted.

King then showed a clip of Kilmeade defending Trump’s incitement of the violence.

“He was not saying go take the Capitol,” Kilmeade said on Jan. 11. “He was going to go protest at the Capitol. He wasn’t saying take the bike racks and throw them.”

The CNN host gave Sean Hannity [a bedtime “pillow talk”adviser to Donald Trump] the same treatment, juxtaposing his texts to Meadows to on-air statements downplaying the riot.

“The hypocrisy!” King said following the clips. “Number one, everything they did violated journalism ethics, reaching out to Mark Meadows. But number two — they’re not journalists — number two, the hypocrisy. To pretend it didn’t happen. On that day it was urgent, on that day the president has to do something, on that day the president has to save his legacy [and] then by that night on TV, [the riot was] not a big deal. And to this day, [the riot was] not a big deal.”

“It just tells you again why it is so critical to get to the full truth of that day,” he added.

These Fox News fascist propaganda collaborators may want to make their escape plans to Argentina and Paraguay like their Nazi predecessors did after World War II.

On Tuesday, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), chairman of the House Rules Committee, called out Fox News after the network failed to cover the news that at least three of its hosts had texted then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 6. ‘The silence is deafening’: Dem lawmaker busts Fox News for ignoring hosts’ texts to Mark Meadows:

At a Tuesday Rules Committee hearing to consider holding Meadows in contempt of Congress, McGovern noted that Jan. 6 Select Committee member Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) had recently revealed that Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade had texted the then-chief of staff as the Capitol riot was ongoing.

“I think that it’s notable that as of the start of the meeting that there has been zero mention on Fox News of their hosts’ texts to Mark Meadows, the texts that Ms. Cheney read last night at the Select Committee’s meeting,” McGovern said. “Not one. And that despite the fact that one of the hosts (Brian Kilmeade) that texted him was live on the air all morning.”

“But what I’m upset about is that what they’ve publicly said ever since, that what happened that day somehow wasn’t the fault of Donald Trump and his allies, that what happened really wasn’t a big deal, that all this is being over-hyped,” McGovern remarked. “This would be a good time for these hosts to use their platforms to tell the American people the truth, just like they were privately texting Mark Meadows the truth on that terrible day, that the president’s inaction hurt us all, that he should have done more, that he should have pushed to stop the violence.

He added: “But I have to say that their silence is deafening.”

Confirmed. Hannity, Ingraham make no mention of text messages to Meadows on shows.

But what really got my attention was committee chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson saying after the vote that the committee is turning its attention to Republican members of Congress who were co-conspirators in the seditious insurrection on January 6.

Huffington Post reports, House Panel To ID Republican Lawmakers Newly Linked To Capitol Riot Turmoil:

The identities of Republican lawmakers and aides linked to the Capitol riot by documents provided by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will soon be revealed by House investigators, a key congressman said Monday.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, told reporters that the documents were “quite revealing.”

He refused to immediately name the Republican legislators revealed in the “information that we received from Mr. Meadows” but said they would be identified in the future.

Committee chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson said Tuesday there were at least ten members of Congress who were texting with Mark Meadows on January 6.

Well, we can identify one GOP Congressman for certain from earlier reporting. Pa. Congressman Scott Perry acknowledges introducing Trump to lawyer at the center of election plot.

“Information we have received has been quite revealing about members of Congress involved in the activities of Jan. 6 as well as staff,” he said. Thompson spoke outside the House chambers after the committee voted in favor of a resolution recommending criminal charges against Meadows for failure to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify about the assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Thompson: Information we have received has been quite revealing about members of Congress involved in the activities of January 6th as well as staff pic.twitter.com/FXcuBp2XBn

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 14, 2021

NBC reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell had asked Thompson about messages from unnamed legislators telling Meadows they were “sorry that it didn’t work out,” presumably referring to plans to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and keep Donald Trump in office despite his election loss to Joe Biden.

Meadows turned over thousands of pages of emails and texts regarding the events surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection before he stopped cooperating, claiming he was protected by executive privilege.

Information included messages involving lawmakers and a PowerPoint “coup scheme” to overthrow the presidential election.

The scheme involved Trump declaring a national security emergency to delay the certification of the 2020 Electoral College results because of baseless claims of foreign “control,” then manhandling the vote to keep Trump in the White House.

Though Meadows’ attorney has said he did nothing about the PowerPoint scheme, one contributor to the plan, retired Army Col. Phil Waldron, told The Washington Post that he talked about it with Meadows up to 10 times and that he was part of a team that briefed several lawmakers about the plot the night before the insurrection.

The full House will vote later today to hold Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress, and send a referral to the Department of Justice.

UPDATE: The House voted on a party-line vote of 222-208, with Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinziger from the January 6 Committee joining all Democrats. Three Republicans did not vote.

Keep in mind that 139 Republicans in the House carried out the plot concocted by Trump lawyers John Eastman and Jenna Ellis (and maybe Justice Department Lawyer Jeffrey Clark) to not certify the Electoral College vote even after the Capitol was stormed by the MAGA/QAnon insurrectionist violent mob. They voted to cover up their own crimes, which text messages to and from Mark Meadows may disclose who are the co-conspirators. The others are accessories to the crime or accessories-after-the-fact. Republicans voted to cover up their own crimes, instead of following their oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Not one of them is fit to serve in office, and should be removed. The 139 should be prosecuted for their criminal roles in the failed coup d’etat on January 6.