named phil waldron who briefed mark meadows and members of congress on truly bogus election fraud theories leading up to january 6th. he s the guy who put together that powerpoint presentation called election fraud, foreign interference, and options for 6 jan. as long the subpoenas keep coming, jim jordan may want to refresh his memory of when he spoke to donald trump. luke brow water was on the byline for that piece i cited. ashley parker is the white house bureau chief for the washington post. luke, let me start with you. you know, we saw what they were saying in public, but there was a lot of effort being undertaken by this group to sort of further any kind of theory they could that would result in the election not actually being
agitators got into the white house. a coup backer who was plotting to overturn the 2020 election making inroads with mr. meadows inside the trump white house. meadows was doing several things to try to advance donald trump s interest in overthrowing the election, and that included things that sounded really wacky at the time, like baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud, meddling, and evidence is now inside the hands of the committee. this powerpoint dated january 5th is beyond insane. a 38-page powerpoint. the powerpoint presentation. powerpoint briefing entitled election fraud, foreign interference and options for 6 jan. we ve been hearing a lot about the powerpoint although many have just come into view, and it s a powerpoint plot to stage a coup to install trump as an authoritarian leader without an election to back it up. it is that serious.
regarding a 38-page power point briefing titled election fraud, foreign interference and options for 6 jan that was to be provided on the hill, and among others, a january 5th, 2021, e-mail about having the national guard on stand by. chairman thompson also details text messages that the committee received from mark meadows, including a november 6th, 2020, text message with a member of congress apparently about appointing alternate electors in certain states as part of a plan that the member acknowledged would be highly controversial and to which mr. meadows apparently said i love it. and early january 2021 text
titled election fraud, foreign interference and options for 6 jan. meadows isn t the only witness stonewalling the committee. roger stone now plans to plead the 5th, joining other high profile targets telling the committee they do not plan to answer questions because they could incriminate themselves. the committee also skeptical of this resistance. if they are asserting the 5th merely to cater to the president s whims or cover up for the president, that is not a proper use of the privilege. reporter: still the committee remains confident they will still get to the bottom of what happened on january 6, and who is to blame, pointing to the more than 275 witnesses who have talked. these people are well within their right to not cooperate, but it s not as if we re not going to get to the information we need. reporter: the committee chairman bennie thompson telling cnn on wednesday the committee plans to move ahead with the criminal contempt referral this week. this despite the f
to cooperate. some of that information revealing quite a bit about meadows role in the lead up to january 6th, including this this is what the letter reads, november 7th, 2020, email discussing the appointment of an alternate slate of electors as part of a, quote, direct and collateral attack after the election. a january 5th, 2021, email regarding a 38-page powerpoint briefing entitled election fraud, foreign interference, and options for 6 jan. that was to be provided by, quote, on the hill and a january 5, 2021, email about having the national guard on standby. so it seems pretty clear by this document dump that meadows provided that he was at least willing to engage with the committee in areas that they were very interested in. that all changed, though, somewhere between monday and this morning where meadows was a no-show for his deposition this morning. that s enough for the committee to say that they ve had enough, they re going to move forward with a criminal contempt ref