White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was warned about the possibility that Trump’s 1/6 rally could turn violent, which means that Trump also knew.
“I know that there were concerns brought forward to Mr. Meadows,” Ms. Hutchinson told investigators at a deposition on March 7, adding: “I know that people had brought information forward to him that had indicated that there could be violence on the 6th. But, again, I’m not sure if he — what he did with that information.”
Ms. Hutchinson — who testified twice before the panel in closed-door interviews in February and March — said Anthony M. Ornato, the former White House chief of operations, told Mr. Meadows 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.”
“But despite this and other warnings, President Trump urged the attendees at the January 6th rally to march to the Capitol to ‘take back your country,’” Douglas N. Letter, the general counsel of the House, wrote in the filing.
If the White House Chief of Staff was warned about the potential for violence, then Donald Trump also must have been warned about the possible violence at his rally.
It is hard to believe and defies all logic and common sense that someone as close to Trump as Mark Meadows would keep the warning to himself and act unilaterally to move forward with the rally.
The point is that the violence wasn’t a bug of Trump’s rally. It was an intentional feature. The Trump White House wanted violence that would prevent the election from being certified. They needed time to get their case before the Supreme Court, where they hoped the election would be tossed back to the states, the fake electors could be sent, and Republicans in Congress would keep Trump in power.
Meadows would not have given the green light for a violent rally unless that is what Trump wanted.
The neglect of the warnings is borderline criminal and shows why the Trump White House has 1/6 blood on its hands.
Mr. Easley is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association