Player In PowerPoint Election Overthrow Plot Reportedly Talked Often With Mark Meadows
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A retired Army colonel who contributed to and helped circulate a PowerPoint with a plan to overthrow the democratic election of Joe Biden told The Washington Post that he discussed the vote as many as 10 times with former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
He also said he briefed several members of Congress on the PowerPoint of “options” with a team the night before the Jan. 6 insurrection — and attended a meeting with then-President Donald Trump and Pennsylvania lawmakers in the Oval Office weeks after the election, the Post reported.
The PowerPoint plan involved Trump declaring a national security emergency to delay the certification of the 2020 election results, then manhandling the vote to keep Trump in the White House.
The retired colonel, Phil Waldron, is a cybersecurity expert who specialized in psychological operations in the military. He was working with Trump’s outside lawyers and others to devise schemes to upend the vote as part of a “command center” of Trump allies holed up in the Willard Hotel ahead of the Jan. 6 riot.
Some challenges to electoral votes pressed by notorious “coup memo” attorney John Eastman — who was also part of the “command center” to stop the election — appear to echo strategies in the PowerPoint plan.
Meadows exposed the PowerPoint scheme in a trove of documents he provided to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. The chilling 38-slide presentation, titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan,” was reportedly part of an email sent to Meadows on Jan. 5. It wasn’t immediately revealed who sent Meadows the email.
Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House select committee, referred to elements of that plan and others as part of a “direct and collateral attack” by Trump allies after the election.
“Those docs include: a 11/7/21 email discussing the appointment of alternate slates of electors as part of a “direct & collateral attack” after the election; a 1/5/21 email RE a 38-page PowerPoint briefing titled ‘Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN’…” pic.twitter.com/2ReFZHNE4X
— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) December 8, 2021
Meadows’ lawyer said the former chief of staff did not act on the plan or otherwise do anything about the email, according to The New York Times.
Under the PowerPoint plan, Trump was to declare a national emergency, citing foreign “control” of electronic voting systems, and then all electronic voting would be rendered invalid. Then-Vice President Mike Pence was to install Republican electors in states where Trump allies would baselessly declare that “fraud occurred,” according to the maneuvers outlined in the plan.
Waldron told the Post that he was largely responsible for the foreign control angle of the strategy.
Meadows reversed an earlier promise to cooperate with the House committee, even though he himself appears to be breaching the executive privilege he claims by widely discussing what led up to Jan. 6, even writing a book that includes details he now refuses to discuss with investigators.
He also appears to have played a role in exactly what investigators are examining.
Meadows has filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and members of the House select committee, claiming he cannot provide information due to the constraints of executive privilege while he served in Trump’s White House.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
