Mark Meadows laughed off Trump’s election fraud claims to White House attorney

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Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, joked about Mr Trump’s claims of election fraud shortly after the 2020 election.

According to the Washington Post, Mr Meadows sent a text message to a White House lawyer. He wrote that his son, Georgia-based attorney Blake Meadows, had been investigating possible fraud and had come up with a few possible votes cast in dead voters’ names.

The lawyer sent a response, joking that maybe Mr Meadows’s son could find the trove of votes Trump would need to win the election, mocking Mr Trump’s claims that 5,000 votes were cast by “dead people.” (The state election board found only four.)

The text exchange occurred in December 2020, according to the Post, just the days before the infamous phone call between President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. During the call, Mr Trump tried to pressure Mr Raffensperger to “find” votes in Georgia to overturn Joe Biden’s rightful victory.

Mr Meadows was on the call, yet a recording of the interaction indicates he did not challenge Mr Trump’s “dead people” voting claims.

Instead, after Mr Raffensperger said that state investigators had only found two instances of this, Mr Meadows replied: “That may be what your investigation shows, but I can promise you there are more than that.”

Earlier this month, Mr Meadows testified before a federal grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s probes.

“Without commenting on whether or not Mr Meadows has testified before the grand jury or in any other proceeding, Mr Meadows has maintained a commitment to tell the truth where he has a legal obligation to do so,” George Terwilliger, his lawyer, told CNN.