The publication Talking Points Memo has obtained thousands of text messages previously provided by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to the House committee investigating January 6, which will soon be releasing its final report.
Among the trove’s contents, another Republican House member calls for the imposition of martial law. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) pushed for the move weeks after the violence of January 6 and just days before Joe Biden was scheduled to be inaugurated. “Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!!” Norman insisted, misspelling the concept. It was previously known that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also raised the idea of martial law in texts with Meadows, although she was less explicitly supportive. “In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law,” she told the then-White House official. Greene was asked about whether she had pushed Trump to impose martial law in a hearing on her constitutional eligibility to run for re-election and claimed she was unsure.
Also among the messages is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sending Meadows a link to a joint statement he released with nearly a dozen other Senators outlining plans for objecting to electoral college results when Congress gathered to certify the 2020 election outcome on January 6, a missive to which Meadows responded approvingly. The direct coordination with the president’s political team in formulating and moving forward with a plan for objecting to results from the last presidential election on supposedly objectively serious grounds is certainly notable. Others who either sent Meadows texts or were mentioned in the messages include GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Kevin Cramer (N.D.), along with GOP Reps. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) and Louie Gohmert (Texas).
A leader of an organization called the Conservative Partnership Institute told Meadows days after the 2020 election that Lee would be hosting a meeting with a sizable group of Senators who wanted info on strategy. “Mike Lee has about a dozen Senators coming over to CPI tonight and they wanted to hear from a legal expert on what’s going on with the campaign,” Corrigan told the then-official. “Any suggestions who would be good for that?”
Cramer was interested in supporting fundraising efforts for what he called a “defense fund,” while Gosar sent odd conspiracy theories — like about a Chinese purchase of the frequently maligned company Dominion Voting Systems — and Gohmert, among other points of interest, was hoping for a ride on Air Force One to Georgia, where he was heading to support Republican campaigns in the then-ongoing Senate runoff elections that decided control of the chamber. Another Republican in Congress avidly interested and involved in affronts against the election outcome was Brian Babin of Texas, who at one point informed Meadows of a meeting at a Conservative Partnership Institute location of “objectors” targeting the election.
Lee’s early interest, as exemplified by the meeting held at that same organization, helps reveal the wide extent of his involvement in the push against the election. Texts from the Senator himself that have previously been reported show him expressing support to Meadows for the possibility of state legislators getting behind alternate slates of electors, something he said he spoke with state officials to push.
