- Mark Meadows used his own cell phone, two personal Gmail accounts, and Signal for government business.
- The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot revealed this information in a report on Sunday.
- The Committee is expected to vote on Monday to hold Meadows in contempt for defying its subpoena.
Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump's chief of staff, used a personal cell phone, two personal Gmail accounts, and a Signal account for official government business, according to a report released on Sunday by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.
The committee released a 51-page report detailing why it should hold Meadows in criminal contempt for defying its subpoena and cited a slew of documents Meadows turned over to the panel when he was cooperating with the probe. The bipartisan committee is expected to vote on the contempt charge on Monday night.
The panel wrote that Meadows, who served as chief of staff from March 2020 to the end of Trump's term, used his own cell phone and two personal email accounts to communicate about "official business related to his service as White House chief of staff." He also sent messages through Signal, the encrypted messaging app, per the report.
Government officials are required to use government-issued accounts and devices to communicate about their work, or forward any private messages to their government accounts, for public transparency and accountability purposes.
Meadows wouldn't be the only powerful Trump administration official to appear to violate these rules. Several top Trump White House officials were found to have used their personal accounts and devices to communicate about government business. And former first lady Melania Trump also used private email accounts to conduct government business, her former adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told The Washington Post. Meadows' and other Trump officials' private communications are particularly notable given the former president's aggressive campaign against Hillary Clinton for using a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
"We would ask Mr. Meadows about his efforts to preserve those documents and provide them to the National Archives, as required by the Presidential Records Act," the committee wrote.
Meadows provided emails and text messages, per the committee, showing how integral he was in Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The committee said it wants to question Meadows about a slew of his communications and actions surrounding the Capitol attack. In one January 5 email, Meadows said the National Guard would be stationed at the Capitol the next day specifically to "protect pro Trump people" attending the planned rally protesting the election's outcome.
Meadows published a book, "The Chief's Chief," earlier this month detailing his time in the White House and promoting a slew of unsubstantiated and false claims about the 2020 election, which he says was stolen by Democrats through widespread voter fraud. After briefly cooperating with the House committee, the former Republican congressman from North Carolina abruptly changed course last week and refused to be deposed by the panel.
"Mr. Meadows has shown his willingness to talk about issues related to the Select Committee's investigation across a variety of media platforms — anywhere, it seems, except to the Select Committee," the committee wrote in the report.
The House is planning to vote on the resolution holding Meadows in contempt — and thus subjecting him to prosecution by the Department of Justice — later in the week.
