The January 6th Committee has begun to dig through Mark Meadows’ text messages. The former Chief of Staff for Donald Trump received numerous texts the day of the Capitol breach from various figures urging Meadows to have the then-president speak out about what was happening.
One such message came from none other than Donald Trump Jr. himself. But while Liz Cheney, who revealed the message during a hearing, appears to think it bolsters her and her colleagues’ fevered conspiracy theory about January 6th, the reality is that it kneecaps it.
Here’s what Don Jr. had to say per The Hill.
“He’s got to condemn this shit ASAP,” Donald Trump Jr. texted Meadows as the attack was underway.
“I’m pushing it hard. I agree,” Meadows replied.
But when the president still did not act, his eldest son reached out again to Trump’s chief of staff, according to Jan. 6 Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who read the series of texts during a hearing Monday night.
“We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand,” Trump Jr. texted.
It wasn’t just Don Jr. who thought things had gone too far, either. Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, and Sean Hannity all texted Meadows while the breach was occurring, warning that what was happening could destroy Donald Trump’s legacy. Whether that was the end result or not is a matter of opinion, but that’s not really the point here.
Rather, the biggest takeaway from this is that there is no evidence here of some grand conspiracy to overthrow the US government as Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, and others have publicly speculated.
Are we to believe that Donald Trump orchestrated “what happened on January 6th” but didn’t let his own son in on it? Or that Trump didn’t share his plans with any of his closest confidantes in the media? That belabors belief, especially since Meadows himself responded to those texts in agreement, noting that he was coordinating with the president on how to respond.
It is abundantly clear at this point that whatever you think of Donald Trump, what happened on January 6th was as much a surprise to him as anyone else. The idea that he hatched and led some master plan in an attempt to seize power and remain in office never made any sense given what we know. Besides, it makes even less sense when you consider that it…didn’t happen. Normally, when you want to enact a coup, you actually, you know, enact a coup. Instead, Trump denounced what occurred, even if it was a few hours later than some would have liked. He then left the White House without any objections.
So again, what exactly is the point of the January 6th Committee? They certainly aren’t going to dig into the questions surrounding the FBI’s involvement, and there’s just no evidence whatsoever that Trump or anyone else in the administration knew what was going to happen that day. And no, Meadows or whoever else discussing objecting to the election and/or exposing possible fraud is not the same as supporting a breach of the Capitol Building.
All this leaves one final straw for Cheney and her cohorts to pull on: To try to blame Trump for not acting quickly enough after he found out what was happening. But no one should let them forget the insane, false conspiracy theory they spun for almost a year before settling for those political scraps.