Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

In my day, never was longer.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

After roe, women are no longer free.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Let there be snark.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I was promised a recession.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / The Meadows Texts

The Meadows Texts

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Update: the next piece is up.

I was just about to write about something that’s bugging me a lot these days–the ProPublica’s terrible, no-good, craptastic piece on the claim that the COVID pandemic got its start as a lab leak, compounded by a tone-deaf and disingenuous defense of the major journalism fails in that work–when news hit my Mastodon feed of Talking Points Memo’s report on Mark Meadows’s texts documenting the plot to overthrow the United States:

The vast majority of Meadows’ texts described in this series are being made public for the very first time. They show the senior-most official in the Trump White House communicating with members of Congress, state-level politicians, and far-right activists as they work feverishly to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. The Meadows texts illustrate in moment-to-moment detail an authoritarian effort to undermine the will of the people and upend the American democratic system as we know it.

The Meadows Texts

 

TPM teased the story in its morning memo (which I didn’t see until just now), and is doling out the material in chunks.  So far, all we have is the intro article linked above, describing the material and sketching out where gaps in the record remain. No juicy stuff yet. But they’re making a big deal out of this, so I expect some serious sedition to drop over the next hours and days.  Any guesses as to the top traitors to be outed by their own texts?

And the inevitable (NSW):

 

 

Oh yeah: this thread is, of course, open.

Image: Plate from a pirated series of Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress, “He and his Drunken Companions raise a Riot in Covent Garden,” 1735.

 

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  2. 2.

    Frank Wilhoit

    Nothing will change unless everyone involved in these exchanges is pulled out of their offices, pulled out of their houses, pulled out of their jail cells, torn flesh from bone in the street, and the bones never buried.  If the bones are buried, nothing will ever change; because burial is forgiveness, and forgiveness is “LOL nothing matters”.

  3. 3.

    geg6

    Josh made a big deal out of the hires for a new investigative team at TPM months ago and this, apparently, is the debut.  I trust Josh much more than the MSM to not fuck with my head and heart with a nothing burger.  So I’m hoping for a nice juicy burger here.

  4. 4.

    piratedan

    TPM is kicking off this series with an exclusive story showing that the log includes more than 450 messages with 34 Republican members of Congress. Those texts show varying degrees of involvement by members of Congress, from largely benign expressions of support for Trump to the leading roles played by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Jody Hice (R-GA), Mo Brooks (R-AL), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the plot to reverse Trump’s defeat. We reached out to all these legislators, and will be detailing their roles and responses to our questions in the first installment of the series, which is coming later today.

     

    Granted, we’re making an assumption that contacts were coup related… but STILL… 34? 34 members of either the House or the Senate and none of them approached the DOJ about any of this?

    The GOP may have the House majority for now, but if even a 3rd of these folks can be indicted for Seditious Conspiracy, the House configuration itself may change…. but the wheels of justice grind slowly, but I would sure be happy to see some of these sanctimonious shits buried under a few buildings.

  5. 5.

    JPL

    Marjorie Taylor Greene has already stated that it is Joe’s fault that she joked about overthrowing the government, because he started it.  As far as I know Joe wasn’t even president on the 6th of January, but whatever.

  6. 6.

    MattF

    My first thought was that now DoJ has a comprehensive list of co-conspirators. Useful for a bottom-up indictment strategy.

  7. 7.

    Bill Arnold

    @JPL:

    Marjorie Taylor Greene

    Marjorie Taylor Greene is an enemy of the United States of America. She should be treated as such, including to her face.

  9. 9.

    Ohio Mom

    @geg6: I feel the way about Josh Marshall you do.

    I certainly don’t believe Covid came from a lab leak but if I did, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been any less sick the first two weeks of November. Proof of a lab leak wouldn’t undo the need for vaccines, masks, anti-viral meds, hospital beds, etc. These people are just itching for a fight, or fights.

  12. 12.

    Bill Arnold

    I’m still surprised that Meadows assumed that such text messages would be safe at the time. Perhaps they truly, stupidly believed that the end result would be D.J. Trump successfully seizing and holding power.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    @Bill Arnold: It was a gamble that failed. Coups do happen, though, and the earlier you get into one, the better you do afterwards. It does seems to me now that a lot of the would-be conspirators have been quiet lately.

  15. 15.

    CaseyL

    It would make my shriveled little heart grow three times its size if a contingent of GOP congresscritters and Senators were indicted for sedition/seditious conspiracy.

    I could conceivably burst spontaneously into flames a song a dance routine.  Just like a musical.

  18. 18.

    bjacques

    @CaseyL: I’ll dance a little jig if Lord Hee Haw’s text messages get bigger media play than the dumbass Twitter Files—because the former actually mean something and because it’ll make the Right and Horseshoe Left cry.

  19. 19.

    SuzieC

    @CaseyL: I suspect Jordan, Greene, and Boebert will just squeak by.  Gosar, who spoke/inflamed the crowd at Trump’s sedition rally, is the most likely to be indicted IMO.  But certainly Meadows is now definitely in the cross-hairs.

  21. 21.

    Bill Arnold

    @SuzieC:

    Gosar, who spoke/inflamed the crowd at Trump’s sedition rally,

    Ah, very good. Now that there is a (are?) sedition conviction, this is defensible.

  23. 23.

    Geminid

    @Bill Arnold: Meadows would not be the first person to lack enough circumspection to leave incriminating emails or texts on devices that investigators could access. Serving as Trump’s Chief of Staff may not have given him much time for reflection.

    Taking that job was a very big mistake and I think Meadows knows this. He was reported in April to have told  a group of people- I believe at a prayer breakfast in North Carolina- that he and his wife “have been deeply humbled.” He sure ought to be. Meadows traded a safe Congressional seat for a crappy job that led to multiple potential felonies.

    I don’t think Meadows took the job because he was a true believer. My theory is that he figured he would help Trump win reelection and then have the inside track to succeed Richard Burr as Senator for North Carolina.

    Now Meadows is in the shit, and has been for amost two years. He’s no Roger Stone, though. I think he’ll flip. That may not keep Meadows out of prison, but it might enable to him to live out his “golden years” as a free- but humbled- man.

  24. 24.

    SuzieC

    @Geminid: I love this analysis.  Is it possible that Meadows actually feels remorse? Cannot wait to see if he flips.  I recall he was at first voluntarily talking to the J6 committee then he abruptly stopped cooperating.  But that was before he was facing felony indictments.

  25. 25.

    Kent

    @Geminid: No one enters Trump orbit without being diminished and compromised.  NO ONE.

    You would think these people would know that by now.

  26. 26.

    MattF

    OT. Finally figured out how to see threads on Mastodon. Choose the ‘…’ icon in the bottom row of icons in a post, then the top choice ‘Expand this post’. Easy, once you know.

  27. 27.

    Lapassionara

    @Geminid: Meadows strikes me as the kind of doofus who could easily be led to participating in a sedition by pressure from Trump. I’m sure he thought, at the time, that the Eastman memo would give him cover. What a nitwit.

  30. 30.

    NutmegAgain

    @geg6: I hope it turns out to be like a Bellingcat for sleazy, corrupt, and treasonous American politics. We could certainly use it.

  32. 32.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    They seem to have gotten away with obvious malfeasance so many times that it is almost too much to hope that these people will finally be held accountable for their crimes. So, I’m going to keep my fingers crossed, but not get too excited.

  35. 35.

    Mike in NC

    450 messages with 34 Republican members of Congress

    Every one of them needs to be subject to censure if found guilty.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @Kent: Like I was saying, Meadows may have let his ambition get the best of him, and thought a Senate seat would the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And Trump knows how to suck people in; Michael Cohen has talked about this.

    Trump may have hinted that Meadows was someone who could control him. After Meadows swallowed the bait and realized he’d been hooked, he might have decided that the only way out was through.

  39. 39.

    JoyceH

    @Geminid:

    Taking that job was a very big mistake and I think Meadows knows this.

    What really struck me about Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony was how INERT Meadows was! It seemed as if he was simply frozen. All this wild stuff swirling around him, and she keeps reporting that he’s sitting there tapping on his phone.

  43. 43.

    geg6

    @Old School:

    CNN did not have the whole tranche of messages.  TPM does.  Not only that but they were able to track down who sent the messages, which was not always apparent.  Word is Ted Cruz and many of the usual suspects in the House are prominently featured among them.

  44. 44.

    frosty

    @geg6: Josh Marshall and TPM were my gateway drug into political blogs. After lots of sampling, I’m down to two: this one and Wonkette.

  45. 45.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    That just dropped! Like 30 minutes ago.
    Bios of the authors, bold mine:

    Josh Kovensky is an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.
    Emine Yücel Emine Yücel is a national political reporter for TPM. A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Emine has worked as a politics production assistant for PBS’ Washington Week and NewsHour Weekend and a news assistant for NPR’s Investigations Team. She double majored in African American studies and Neuroscience at Northwestern University, where she also competed on the varsity fencing team. She later received her master’s degree in Social Justice and Investigative Reporting from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern.

  48. 48.

    sukabi

    @Ohio Mom: they’re looking to place the blame for massive policy failures and criminal malfeasence on someone other than themselves….their fuckups and greed cost 1 million plus US lives….

  49. 49.

    Ken

    @Bill Arnold: <wingnut>AHA!  Ukraine, where the Hunter Biden server with Hillary’s emails is stored!  African-American studies, do I need to wink-wink-nudge-nudge more? And a master’s in Social Justice!!!</wingnut>

  51. 51.

    TriassicSands

    geg6   So I’m hoping for a nice juicy burger here.

    I’m holding out for a “Mt. Olympus.”

    Clinton State Diner Rt. 173 & Bank Street, Clinton , NJ 08809 (908) 713 – 0012. A unique dining experience featuring a toy train circling the dining area and a one of a kind fishtank. This restaurant is home to the 50 pound burger they call “Mt. Olympus”

  52. 52.

    MisterForkbeard

    Look guys, the reporter at TPM is named “Hunter Walker” so clearly this whole thing is a democratic setup on Mark Meadows. Because Hunter Biden.

  53. 53.

    GibberJack

    @Geminid: It’s like Trump has an evil third eye that can perceive how far a shadow a person’s ambition will cast over their integrity.

  60. 60.

    Tom Levenson

    @glc: Yeah. I’m going to try to get something up on that tomorrow. Jim’s been on fire on this issue, and he’s exactly right.

  61. 61.

    Geminid

    @NorthLeft: That’s when the Gazpacho Police bring out the big amplifiers and start blasting out Christian pop music. It’s horrible, like a living hell.

  62. 62.

    Elizabelle

    @glc:  @Tom Levenson:

    That would be good.

    Major media has a real problem being taken in by GOP/rightwing propandists.  Not surprising when it’s the FTF NY Times, but Pro Publica falling for this was bad.

    Wuhan Lab virus!

    Red wave!

    James Fallows is great; he and Norm Ornstein are the gold standard.

  65. 65.

    Bill Arnold

    @glc:
    That piece Fallows is vivisecting makes me question everything that Pro Publica has done recently. Unfalsifiable belief in “Lab Leak” [1] is a gullibility indicator, IMO. [2]
    [1] Properly, “Lab Escape”, but the propagandists wanted alliteration.
    [2] The July 2022 Science papers were convincing:
    The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic (26 July 2022, MICHAEL WOROBEY et al)
    The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2 (26 July 2022, JONATHAN E. PEKAR et al)

  66. 66.

    Bobby Thomson

    Pretty underwhelmed by this so far.  A bunch of Congressmen coming up with wackadoo ideas to overturn the election, but along the lines of attempting to challenge state results in Congress, declaring “marshal law,” etc.  From my perspective these texts are exculpatory or neutral at best because they aren’t talking about mob violence.  It’s not a crime to be an incompetent legislator.  And it’s easy for Meadows to say he was just humoring the crazies.

  67. 67.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Bobby Thomson: Yeah, and these people aren’t from districts where this will hurt them

    I am surprised whoever leaked this didn’t leak the ones from Ron Johnson before the election. Might not have made a difference, but…

  68. 68.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    these texts are just dripping with economic anxiety​

  69. 69.

    Elizabelle

    Meanwhile:

    FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Said to Be Arrested in the Bahamas

    A statement by the government of the Bahamas said Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested after prosecutors in the United States filed criminal charges.

  71. 71.

    Geminid

    @Bobby Thomson: Meadows does seem kind of detached.  But no matter how equivocal he has been throughout, I think Meadows incriminated himself. The manouvers he’s talking about have a hint of legality that might sustain a defense. But I bet Meadows had foreknowledge of the upcoming violent insurrection.

  73. 73.

    Mai Naem mobile

    It would have been nice to have the Ted Budd texts 6 weeks ago. Might have made a difference in the NC Senate race. Maybe we get another crack in 2 years if Budd get to  learn the FO part of FAFO.

    @Elizabelle: that was fast. I thought it would take them a few more months to arrest SBF.

  75. 75.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Geminid: i always thought Meadows was the one guy who would end up doing time because his hands were in everything. Also, I remember him being kind of stupid when he was head of the Freedumb Caucus.

  76. 76.

    Ken

    In the Inferno, Dante put some living people in the circle of traitors. The explanation was that some sins are so vile that the soul instantly descends to hell, and the body is animated by a fiend that continues to work evil on Earth.

    Not saying yes, not saying no…

  78. 78.

    ETtheLibrarian

    I am going to assume that one of the first people getting charged is Meadow’s. And I assume there is some deal in place.

  80. 80.

    geg6

    @Bobby Thomson:

    This is them just getting ramped up after the election.  There’s lots more to come and I assume it is being presented chronologically.  And remember, these are the messages Meadows gave up voluntarily to the J6 Committee.  Do we have any idea what the Justice Department might have that isn’t included here?  Or that they might go after?

  82. 82.

    Elizabelle

    @twbrandt (formerly tom):  That’s true, re all the initials.

    It would be a kindness if people would spell out or at least indicate who/what they’re dealing with in the first reference.

    Aussie Sheila’s post a few nights ago, on and on about the SC: skimming, I wondered what fresh hell the Supreme Court was up to.  SC is also South Carolina.  And a lot of other things.  (She meant Special Counsel.)

  84. 84.

    Elizabelle

    @Gin & Tonic:  On advice of counsel.

    The wheels move quickly when you fuck with people’s money (or what you present to them as “money.”)   Try to destroy something less tangible … it goes on and on and on.

  85. 85.

    Captain C

    @JPL:

    Marjorie Taylor Greene has already stated that it is Joe’s fault that she joked about overthrowing the government, because he started it.

    a) This is abuser talk on her part.

    b) This is also yet another piece of evidence that the Republicans are no longer at all the Party of Personal Responsibility (if they ever were, which I doubt).

    (edited to quote the quote)

  86. 86.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Bobby Thomson: Seditious Conspiracy would be a huge stretch for any of these assholes.  Conspiracy to Defraud/Obstruct on the other hand…

    Note: in the recent Oathkeepers verdict, they were ALL convicted of Obstruction, even the ones who never actually entered the Capital.

  87. 87.

    PaulB

    Not a nothing-burger but also no blockbuster revelations. It’s nice to have it all laid out, though, and it continues to surprise me just how openly they were advocating for overturning the election.

    I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    @ETtheLibrarian: There was a story that came out late Spring  (I think) that word was put out in Trump’s circle to stop talking to Meadows because he was talking to the feds. There’s been no confirmation since then, and Meadows has kept a fairly low profile. I think he knows a lot and would be a valuable witness if he flipped. But my guess is that Trump did not confide in Meadows so he might not be able to incriminate Trump with direct evidence.

    I think Roger Stone could. It looks like he acted as the channel between Trump and the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers. But Stone is a freak and will be much tougher to flip than Meadows.

  89. 89.

    piratedan

    @geg6: agreed, looking at the timeline that was implied, these are the “early returns” of hair on fire responses to losing the election and casting about for a strategy to follow for contesting/disputing/disregarding those results.  We got to see forms of these being trotted out leading up to Jan 6th as they were all batted down by the courts during  the whack-a-mole judicial dance that ensued as they tried to find ANYTHING that might serve as a viable attack on the election.

    My guess is that we’ll see more and more damning evidence as they release items closer to Jan 6th, with the coup plot being an actual event in motion.

  90. 90.

    TriassicSands

    @Ken:

    I went on the Internet to look for the biggest burger in the land. Most were 3 to 5 pounders and some had your guarantee — eat this in 30 minutes and it’s free.

    I don’t know if the 50 pounder is real, but I imagine just looking at it would require  bypass surgery. It didn’t say how much it costs, but I’d definitely buy one for TFG if he promised to eat it.

  94. 94.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Part III (Scott Perry Edition) is now up.  (Reminder: FBI has already seized Perry’s phone!):

    It had been one week since the 2020 presidential election and three days since news outlets called the race, and Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) was frantically working to reverse President Trump’s loss.

    Perry had an aggressive plan. Based on the text log obtained by TPM, Perry wrote Trump White House Chief of Staff about his efforts to set up a “cyber team.” It would seize voting machines around the country and put them under “lock and key.”
    …

    The texts between Perry and Meadows show the congressman attempting to involve himself in nearly every aspect of the campaign to block Biden’s win. They also reveal Perry to be someone who appeared to sincerely buy into outlandish conspiracy theories that the election was stolen by an array of shadowy international cyber warriors — and who was willing to use his position and influence in government to sow doubt and subvert the vote based on those deeply paranoid convictions.

  96. 96.

    Redshift

    @Captain C:

    This is also yet another piece of evidence that the Republicans are no longer at all the Party of Personal Responsibility

    Back when they used that slogan, it was never about them. The entire meaning of it was poor people and Black/Brown people need to “take personal responsibility” because being poor or downtrodden was their own fault, and there was no reason for government to do anything about it.

  97. 97.

    Redshift

    @SuzieC:

    I recall he was at first voluntarily talking to the J6 committee then he abruptly stopped cooperating.

    IIRC, he abruptly stopped cooperating when he found out they had subpoenaed his phone logs (incoming and outgoing numbers and times.) Which tells me before that, he was dumb enough to think he could “cooperate” and only tell them the parts that made him look good, and they wouldn’t know anything else to ask about.

  99. 99.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Elizabelle: ​It would be a kindness if people would spell out or at least indicate who/what they’re dealing with in the first reference.

    Particulary those amongst us (and they are legion) who make up their own acronyms and expect the rest of us to figure out what they meant.

    FTR, a couple of generations back, when I was titled Senior Engineer but in fact spent most of my time and effort writing proposals for the Feds, whenever one intended to use an acronym it was considered good form to write it out in full at first appearance, followed by the acronym in parentheses; thereafter the acronym alone could be used. E.g. (pace Ruckus):

    Shit For Brains (SFB)

  102. 102.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Jacel: A friend of mine’s band used to do a killer version of the love theme from Twin Peaks.  All really top notch musicians.  They busted it out at a party a couple years ago and I had no idea it was part of their repertoire.  Needless to say my (very stoned) mind was sufficiently blown!

  103. 103.

    TriassicSands

    @Origuy:

    Yes, I read an article about it several years ago. I fasted for a week after reading it. Sheesh. This country can turn eating into an obscenity.

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