CNN Exclusive: Republicans who texted Meadows with urgent pleas on January 6 say

Washington
CNN
 — 

Within minutes of the US Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, messages began pouring into the cell phone of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Among those texting were Republican members of Congress, former members of the Trump administration, GOP activists, Fox personalities – even the President’s son. Their texts all carried the same urgent plea: President Donald Trump needed to immediately denounce the violence and tell the mob to go home.

“He’s got to condem (sic) this shit. Asap,” Donald Trump Jr. texted at 2:53 p.m.

“POTUS needs to calm this shit down,” GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina wrote at 3:04 p.m.

“TELL THEM TO GO HOME !!!” former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus messaged at 3:09 p.m.

“POTUS should go on air and defuse this. Extremely important,” Tom Price, former Trump health and human services secretary and a former GOP representative from Georgia, texted at 3:13 p.m.

“Fix this now,” wrote GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas at 3:15 p.m.

One of the key questions the January 6 House committee is expected to raise in its June hearings is why Trump failed to publicly condemn the attack for hours, and whether that failure is proof of “dereliction of duty” and evidence that Trump tried to obstruct Congress’ certification of the election.

The Meadows texts show that even those closest to the former President believed he had the power to stop the violence in real time.

CNN obtained the 2,319 text messages that Meadows selectively handed over to the January 6 committee in December before he stopped cooperating with the investigation. According to a source familiar with the committee’s investigation, the texts provide a valuable “road map” and show how Meadows was an enabler of Trump, despite being told there was no widespread election fraud.

Seventeen months later, CNN spoke to more than a dozen people who had texted Meadows that day, including former White House officials, Republican members of Congress and political veterans. Without exception, each said they stood by their texts and that they believed Trump had the power and responsibility to try to stop the attack immediately.

“I thought the President could stop it and was the only person who could stop it,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was Trump’s director of strategic communications until she left the White House in December 2020. Farah Griffin is now a CNN political commentator.

“When he finally tweeted something hours and hours later, there are reports of people inside the building saying, ‘He’s saying to go home.’ They would have listened to him,” she added.

Farah Griffin texted Meadows at 3:13 p.m. that day: “Potus has to come out firmly and tell protesters to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed.”

Trump’s former acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, also texted Meadows on January 6: “Mark: he needs to…