Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows wrote in a Jan. 5 email that the National Guard was on standby to “protect pro Trump people” one day before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the House committee tasked with investigating the attack revealed on Sunday (Dec. 12). The information was unearthed in a public filing Sunday night as Meadows, who served as chief of staff under Trump, remains under investigation by the committee.
The context of Meadows’ email is unclear. However, the update arrives amidst increased scrutiny over the Guard’s delayed response to pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6. As reported by REVOLT, a former D.C. National Guard official previously accused Gen. Charles Flynn and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt of delaying the Guard’s response and then lying about it to Congress.
In a 36-page memo, Col. Earl Matthews said Flynn and Piatt recommended that the Guard take over Washington, D.C. police officers’ traffic duties to free up their Capitol response, rather than immediately deploying Guardsmen. Flynn and Piatt clamed “the optics of having uniformed military personnel deployed to the U.S. Capitol would not be good,” Matthews said.
The two admissions also line up with the testimony of Former Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who said then-President Trump told him on Jan. 3 to “do whatever was necessary to protect the demonstrators that were executing their constitutionally protected rights.”
The update about Meadows’ email is part of a 51-page document that was released by the Jan. 6 committee on Sunday. The panel is scheduled to meet today (Dec. 13) to formally advance the report to the full House floor, which will later vote on whether or not to hold Meadows in criminal contempt.
Last week, the committee told Meadows it had “no choice” but to advance criminal contempt proceedings against him.