GOP’s Jordan Confirms He Sent Meadows Jan. 5 Text on Election
GOP’s Jordan Confirms He Sent Meadows Jan. 5 Text on Election
(Bloomberg) -- On the day before the Jan. 6 Capitol assault, a Republican congressman sent a text message to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about how Vice President Mike Pence could throw out Electoral College votes from some states during the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
A spokesman for the representative, Jim Jordan of Ohio, acknowledged that Jordan, an ally of then-President Donald Trump, “forwarded the text to Mr. Meadows, and Mr. Meadows certainly knew it was a forward.”
But Russell Dye, the spokesman, said the material obtained from another source and forwarded by Jordan had been altered and misrepresented by the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.
The text was publicly displayed by Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, during a meeting of the committee on Monday.
Schiff had described it as a message sent to Meadows from an unnamed lawmaker the day before the insurrection. It is among thousands of texts and records turned over by Meadows that the committee says it wants to question him about.
The panel later that night voted to recommend Meadows be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions under subpoena. The full House voted Tuesday night to do so.
That text at issue was displayed in a graphic “Lawmaker Text to Meadows” as reading: “‘On Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.’”
A spokesman for the committee responded to the accusation that the text had been altered by acknowledging a period had been inadvertently added at the end of the sentence, and that it had been provided by the committee to Schiff that way.
That spokesman, who was granted anonymity to discuss the proceedings, said the committee regretted the error.
When Meadows was a congressman from North Carolina, he co-founded with Jordan the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Jordan is now the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.