Recent reports as of late revealed former President Donald Trump’s penchant for destroying documents throughout his presidency. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was criticized for trying to defend the former president’s alleged tendency to tear up documents.
Greg Sargent blasted Meadows in a piece for the Washington Post for trying to defend the former president’s habit of destroying or tearing up documents throughout his presidency. Meadows appeared on right-wing network NewsMax where he compared his former boss’s destruction of documents to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ripping of Trump’s State of the Union speech.
Sargent said the comparison Meadows made was “epic stupidity.” Sargent also noted that the right-wing network also did not push back on Meadows’ comparison.
“You will recall that what Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif) ripped up in Feb 2020 was a copy of President Trump’s State of the Union address, after he had already delivered most of it to the nation. Pelosi’s act in no sense denied the public information, whereas withholding presidential documents very well might, and might also break the Presidential Records Act, a law,” wrote Sargent.
Sargent went on to note that the mainstream press is also complicit in allowing Republicans to get away with lying or spinning allegations in an effort to cover up for Trump and that Meadows is getting away with it now. Sargent explained that Meadows’ claim about Pelosi was a “diversionary moment of low comedy.”
Meadows was referred to the Justice Department by the House for his refusal to further cooperate with the Congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 elections.
With some former Trump administration officials voluntarily cooperating with the committee, former Trump White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham revealed that Meadows attended “secret meetings” that the former president held in the residential part of the White House.
Grisham noted that part of her job as former first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff was to be informed about any meetings taking place in the East Wing so she may inform Mrs. Trump ahead of time. Grisham added that there were meetings taking place in that part of the White House and that Meadows would most likely have been attending those meetings, including the legal team that sought to overturn or contest the 2020 election results.