House Dems Reportedly Ramp Up Anti-Trump ‘Witch Hunt’, Target His Chief of Staff Over Capitol Riots

In July, the Democratic Party-controlled House of Representatives began a formal investigation into the 6 January violence at the US Capitol by angry Trump supporters convinced that the president had been “robbed” of victory in the November election. Trump dismissed the probe as a “partisan sham” to distract Americans from Joe Biden’s “failures”.

The House Select Committee investigation into the events of 6 January has asked telecommunications companies and social media firms to hang onto any records they have on former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, a source said to be familiar with the situation has told The Guardian.

The source did not specify what specifically the committee may have been looking for in Meadows’ records, but did indicate that the panel is expected to schedule a second hearing on the January mayhem before the end of September. The source also indicated that investigators are in the ‘evidence-gathering phase’ at this moment.

Meadows is one of the most senior Trump administration officials revealed to be targeted by the Select Committee’s probe. Last week, the panel announced plans to gather information on “several hundred” people, and to make information requests from the National Archives and Records Administration, the Pentagon, the Departments of Homeland Security, the Interior and Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Members of Trump’s family are also among those who could be targeted in the record requests, reports say. In all, 35 telecommunications companies and social media entities have been instructed not to scrub records of those affected.

Among the ostensible goals of the investigation is an effort to find out whether the former president or members of his inner circle had any roll in planning the riots and violence which took place at the Capitol on 6 January.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed any suggestion that he had any role in the unrest. The day the violence took place, the president held a separate ‘Stop the Steal’ rally in front of the White House, about 2 miles (3.2 km) away from the legislature, with tens of thousands of supporters convinced he was robbed of victory in the November 3 election showing up to back him.

Democratic officials and media accused Trump of egging on the violence at the Capitol on Twitter, with these allegations prompting the social media giant to take the unprecedented measure of permanently banning the sitting president from its platform and scrubbing his account. However, US media accounts of his comments that day have found that he had told protesters to “stay peaceful” and “go home,” and that he made no direct remarks encouraging violence.

Meadows is one of a number of officials who remained loyal to Trump after the president began making allegations that the November election was stolen. Ex-staffers have indicated that Meadows took part in Trump’s 6 January rally, stayed by his side along with other advisors in the White House as they strategised legal avenues to try to overturn the election, and spoke to the aides of Vice President Mike Pence and Defence Secretary Christopher Miller.

In the months following Trump’s departure from the White House, the former chief of staff has continued to defend him, and to attack his successor, Joe Biden, over his administration’s policies. Last week, Meadows blasted the Democratic president’s vaccine mandate initiative, accusing the POTUS of governmental overreach and vowing to “fight, hold him accountable, and protect individual rights against these unlawful mandates.”