David Corn - Mark Meadows: One Helluva Liar

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://link.motherjones.com/public/28249406


Mark Meadows’ book should be recalled and pulped.

After watching the compelling testimony of his onetime senior aide Cassidy Hutchinson—who offered evidence indicating that Donald Trump intended to marshal the violence of his extremist supporters to overthrow the constitutional order and stay in office—I lunged for my copy of Meadows’ own account of his days as Trump’s chief factotum. I already knew that Meadows’ book, The Chief’s Chief, was bunk, having previously reported that its understated and limited characterization of January 6—there was a great rally and some bad apples went too far—was vastly at odds with the text messages he had received that day that were released late last year by the House J6 select committee. But Hutchinson’s testimony further shows the guy is a gigantic liar.

Okay, maybe that’s not a newsflash. After all, in his book he fully supports Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election, while, of course, citing no proof. He cites the “electricity” present at the final Trump rallies before Election Day to back up his claim, “I knew he didn’t lose.” He devotes merely a few pages to the post-election period and January 6. In this stretch, he doesn’t mention Trump’s efforts to pressure state election officials and Republican state officeholders to overturn the results, Trump’s attempt to muscle Justice Department officials to declare the election was corrupt, or Trump’s scheming with John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, assorted Republican House members, and others to block the certification of the electoral votes. He declares that Trump “wanted to uphold the Democratic process.” (Note to copyeditor: Meadows errantly capitalized “democratic.”) And he hammers “the Fake News” for “instituting a full-court press against President Trump” by portraying his supporters as “crazy, unhinged, or moronic.” The book is a triumph of toadyism.

Meadows portrays January 6 as nothing more than Trump’s last chance to make a “last formal address to his supporters” and to give them “one more chance to come together, make their voices heard, and encourage each other.” He insists Trump did not call for violence or expect that anyone would enter the Capitol. He says that after Trump’s speech to the crowd at the Ellipse, Trump told him that he had no intention of joining the throng as it headed toward Capitol Hill and that he had only been speaking metaphorically when he had declared to the assembled, “I’ll be there with you.” In this book, Meadows writes nothing about what happened in the White House during the riot. Not a single word. Nada regarding any action Trump or he took during one of the most consequential and horrific events in US history. That’s quite a tell.

Hutchinson’s appearance before the committee makes clear why Meadows elided those harrowing hours: He and Trump had sat on their duffs, violating the oaths they had sworn to defend the Constitution. Trump was apparently rooting on the rioters.

*snip*

[oldtime dfl_er]

1. It's hard to believe

and I know I'm naive for an old lady, but it's hard to believe that grown men are willing, over and OVER and OVER again, to stake, and FORFEIT their reputations in the service of the orange madman.

[BigmanPigman]

3. The exact same personality types were surrounding Nixon.

There was never any accountability (Nixon pardoned) so of course the criminals did it again, now only worse than the last time.

[BigmanPigman]

2. Meadows is toast.

Just like Flynn, Bannon, Stone, etc. I hope they spend the remainder of their lying, cheating, stealing lives is a cold, dark, solitary cell. That would be too good for them in my opinion. Traitors used to be executed. They should be thanking their lucky stars that that won't happen to them.

[czarjak]

4. Good liars are fake news. Period.