Meadows lyrics shed new mild on Trump’s efforts in Georgia

The Jan. 6 committee fight over Mark Meadows testimony sheds new light on how the Trump campaign indirectly interfered with Georgia election scrutiny, as they were largely rebuffed by the Georgia Secretary of State.

Testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to the President and Meadows, shows that Meadows sought a “casual” trip to Georgia in December 2020 and eventually arrived in the state as part of the mail-in ballot review.

Meadows apparently weighed it up and offered to help Trump campaign officials with the review.

“He wanted to do more of a status check to see where they were on things, whether they felt they needed more resources, whether there was anything the White House could do to facilitate the process. For example, if they needed bodies, there were campaign officials who had disembarked and were looking for jobs,” Hutchinson said of the Meadows visit.

State officials were also at the scrutiny, and Meadows was apparently hoping to “ask about what they’ve heard from the state about the state of the election and, you know, if there was any significant evidence for them at the time.”

The state of Georgia has conducted its own investigation into former President Trump’s election interference and plans to call witnesses after the state primary in late May. Trump is involved in this primary, supporting GOP rivals Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

While Meadows apparently traveled to Georgia around the holidays to visit a son who lives in the Atlanta area, there were discussions in the White House about how that trip could be aligned with campaign goals in the state.

“The main purpose of this trip was to visit family. His son lives in Georgia and they went to his son’s house for Christmas. Conveniently, his son lives near Cobb County, and Mr. Meadows had spoken at length about coordinating visits with Georgia State officials during this trip,” Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson said the team ultimately decided against her accompanying Meadows on the trip.

“Well, there was a point at which I wanted to go with him because he wanted to do a few more meetings, but then it was decided that he would do it a bit more informally and casually, and that’s when he decided watch the ballots get tallied,” she said.

The revelation, which Meadows was considering offering campaign assistance in Georgia’s much-publicized ballot review, came shortly before President Trump’s now infamous call to Raffensperger in January 2021.

Hutchinson’s testimony was released along with reams of other evidence obtained by the Jan. 6 committee in a lawsuit to compel Meadows to provide other text messages and documents he claims are privileged.

That includes a sworn statement to Raffensperger detailing how disturbed he was by the Trump campaign’s efforts to get involved.

Raffensperger reiterated that he was ignoring various attempts by the Trump campaign to contact him.

“They really want to talk to you,” Raffensperger recalled his deputy’s statement.

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“I said, ‘I don’t want to. And so she said, ‘Well, they really want to talk to you.’ I said, ‘We have all these lawsuits going on. It’s not appropriate that I only speak to the President alone.’”

Raffensperger added that both the legal battle and her own investigation made the contact unethical.

“We had ongoing investigations. We’ve also had lawsuits with the Trump team and the Trump campaign and all these other organizations and I just didn’t feel like that was the right way to go. That they had their lawyers, we have our lawyers and we will follow the process, we will follow the law and the results will be what the results will be,” he said.