Despite the fact that Fox didn’t carry the 1/6 Committee’s hearing against Mark Meadows live last night, the MAGA-Right is having a harder and harder time asserting (with a straight face) that the election was rigged, that January 6th wasn’t centrally coordinated in some way, and, specifically, that Trump wasn’t aware of, and involved in, all of it. It is all starting to unravel.
The evidence released last night was entirely predictable. Trump’s entire life has been near defined by very serious issues of impropriety swirling around him and yet the evidence most directly tying him remained hidden, just enough to keep him marching forward, never held to account, from the sexual assault allegations, to the Russian coordination-collusion in 2016, to the Ukraine impeachment, and now the 2020 election and its aftermath, the most damning evidence always remained just outside of arms reach and Trump lived another day.
That is Trump’s life, one based on a feral survival instinct, his only genius. It is why he repeatedly says he prizes loyalty above anything else, even competence. Competence does him no good if the person spills the beans.
But now Mark Meadows’s cell phone and that PowerPoint plan have become the bane of Trump World’s existence because that dam is breaking and a big window is now half open, giving a glimpse inside as to the real truth regarding the “rigged” election claim and the centralized planning around January 6th. For the first time, the world heard many of the texts coming into the White House as January 6th unfolded, some coming from people who later went on to cover for Trump, especially those from Fox News personalities and Congress. There is a sense that we finally know all that Meadows and Trump talked about that day. The media buzz today implies such.
But we don’t know it all. Far from it. Mark Meadows turned over a lot of his texts and emails. He did not turn over all of them. Meadows still holds some private as “privileged,” and the only tenable explanation is that they are the most damning.
According to the Daily Beast:
Meadows has already turned over nearly 9,000 pages of documents requested by the committee. But the committee is still coming after him, because of his reluctance to turn over some evidence about inner workings at the Trump White House—and his refusal to sit down for sworn testimony behind closed doors.
We also know that he used his private Google account and private phone throughout the troubled period and the committee gave the sense that they doubt he turned over all of those documents. The combination is infuriating to the committee and many citizens:
After the Jan. 6 Committee disclosed just a few choice text messages between Meadows and Fox News hosts, an anonymous lawmaker, and Donald Trump Jr. about the insurrection, the battle for all of Meadows’ communications has taken on new meaning…
…Congressional investigators are particularly interested in how Meadows used his personal devices and accounts to coordinate several challenges to the 2020 election results—and the disastrous aftermath of the failed coup. Trump’s right-hand man in the White House played a pivotal role, most prominently in organizing the infamous Jan. 2 phone call during which Trump tried to pressure Georgia’s top elections official to “find 11,780 votes” and erase Joe Biden’s victory.
There is only one common sense take away and that – though we know far more than we do about other scandals, Trump’s lifelong pattern remains in place. The most damning evidence remains just out of our grasp, the stuff Meadows retains as either still “privileged” or has on his personal devices or encrypted, is the evidence that most directly ties Trump to the entire conspiracy in the attempted coup.
Yes, attempted a coup. That is the other thing that Meadows’s phone and records make clear. The Trump administration engaged in an attempted coup and it appears that it will now be all but impossible for Trump to keep that dependable, and never more needed, wall of secrecy intact. While the media buzzes about what it learned last night, it’s critical to also remember that the worst is still being held back. For now.
If we ever see all of the worst, it will surely be even worse than we imagined. That is one last Trump truism.
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