From NC to Trump’s White House: Will Capitol riot ‘stain’ Mark Meadows?
Former congressman and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — who rose from developing real estate in the mountains of North Carolina to being a national leader in the Republican Party — is embroiled in one of America’s biggest political controversies: the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
He’s been subpoenaed by the House of Representatives’ Jan. 6 commission. In addition, testimony Tuesday in the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed that Meadows knew about a phone call that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley made to China to assure that country’s leaders of America’s stability, according to Milley’s testimony to lawmakers.
The Jan. 6 commission has asked Meadows to appear for deposition on Oct. 15, and to provide documents by Oct. 7.
While the details of his testimony and the findings of the commission have yet to unfold, the subpoena is the latest in a series of scandals that have followed Meadows during and after his term as former President Donald Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff.
After a “meteoric” rise to power that defined Meadows’ earlier career in politics, the subpoena “will be a stain on his time in office,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University.
Neither Meadows nor his advisor could be reached for comment.
Meadows came into his role as Trump’s chief of staff in March 2020, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The months that followed were tumultuous: Trump contracted COVID-19; promoted baseless claims of election fraud; and spoke at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Now, lawmakers are investigating what role Meadows might have played in the latter two scandals. Trump was impeached but not convicted on allegations that he incited the Jan. 6 riot. Now, lawmakers will be reviewing what led to the violence — five people died as a result of the riot, including one police officer — and who might be responsible.
In a letter to Meadows, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote that Meadows is suspected of having “critical information” about the Jan. 6 riot.
It is unclear how much Meadows knew about the possibility of violence leading up to Jan. 6, but a report published by ProPublica — which Thompson cited in his letter — raises the question of whether a rally organizer may have warned Meadows that the participants could overwhelm law enforcement.
“The question is … what did he know and when did he know it?” Cooper said. “Was the plan to storm the Capitol or was the plan to have a peaceful rally?”
From NC to Washington
Meadows was elected to the House from NC’s 11th Congressional District in 2012. Before 2012, the district had been competitive between both parties, but redistricting under GOP leadership split the Democratic stronghold of Asheville in two — making the 11th District solidly Republican.
The 2012 election was Meadows’ most difficult of the four that he won, but he still beat his Democratic competitor in a landslide victory of nearly 50,000 votes.
Meadows had been a real estate developer and was involved in politics — he served as the chairman of the Republican Party in Macon County, for example — but was not part of the traditional political establishment.
“He came from obscurity to Congress in pretty short order,” said Democrat Moe Davis, an Air Force colonel who ran unsuccessfully against Madison Cawthorn, Meadows’ successor, in 2020.
Once a congressman, Meadows quickly stirred controversy.
In 2012, videos showed Meadows telling a crowd about then-President Barack Obama: “We’ll send him back home to Kenya or wherever it is.” Meadows said shortly afterward that he believed Obama was a citizen, and that the remark was a “poor choice of words.”
He went on to gain significant influence in the House. He became chairman of the Freedom Caucus, a coalition of about 30 conservative House Republicans, and, in 2015, helped lead an effort seeking to oust then-Speaker of the House John Boehner from his leadership role.
Meadows was known by his political peers as charismatic and effective — traits that helped him quickly gain influence and eventually led him to the White House, said Jim Davis, a North Carolina state senator from Western North Carolina.
He told reporters that he would not run for reelection in 2019, just two days before the filing deadline for the 2020 election. He endorsed Lynda Bennett to replace him, but she lost to Cawthorn in a runoff election despite the backing of both Meadows and Trump for Bennett.
In March 2020, he became Trump’s chief of staff — a transition that proved, at the very least, difficult.
Meadows since January
Working now as a senior partner at a conservative networking organization in Washington, Meadows has made
headlines amid the continued fallout of the Trump administration.
Meadows was subpoenaed along with three other Trump loyalists by the Jan. 6 commission: former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino; former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel; and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.
It’s unclear what impact the commission’s findings will have on Meadows’ legacy, but with his ties to Trump come “a lot of downsides to that and not a lot of upsides that I see,” Moe Davis said.
Particularly damaging among his conservative allies, Davis said, might be the testimony that Meadows knew about Gen. Mark Milley’s call to a Chinese military official. Trump has said that Milley may have committed treason by calling the Chinese to assure them that the Trump would not launch an attack to keep himself in office.
Along with the Capitol riot, Meadows drew criticism for mediating a call between Trump and Georgia election officials in which Trump asked the officials to “find” nearly 12,000 votes — enough to change the outcome of the election.
The reputations of several Trump staffers were tarnished after their service, Moe Davis said. “Mr. Meadows might be in that same line.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 11:12 AM.
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