Mark Meadows Burned Papers After Talk About Tossing Election Results, Ex-Aide Says
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows destroyed documents after a meeting about overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election, a former aide said Sunday on CNN.
Alyssa Farah Griffin said a source with “first-hand knowledge” provided testimony to the House panel probing the insurrection that Meadows burned papers in his office after meeting with Rep. Scott Perry (R-Penn.) about challenging the election.
“I expect to see that come out in testimony” before the House committee investigating the insurrection, she added.
Another former Meadows aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, said she watched Meadows burn the documents in her account before House select committee investigators, Politico reported last month.
The meeting with Perry occurred an unspecified number of weeks after the election while Trump and supporters were desperately casting around for ways to change the vote, according to Politico.
Hutchinson also told the panel that Meadows was warned of possible violence on Jan. 6, 2021, but it was unclear what action, if any, he took in response.
Griffin may have been referring to Cassidy as her source with first-hand knowledge of the destruction of documents by Meadows. Hutchinson is expected to testify in the ongoing televised hearings held by the House panel.
Perry was pressuring Meadows to take action regarding the election, according to his emails to Meadows released by the House committee.
“Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!” he wrote to Meadows late last year in one of the messages.
Perry was one of “multiple” Republican lawmakers who asked the Trump administration for pardons following the insurrection, House committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said at the hearing last week. But Perry’s office denied that.
The full extent of Meadows’ role in the insurrection, or what possible charges he could face, is not yet clear.
