Mark Meadows Provided the January 6 Committee With a Truly Insane Document

I have resisted the temptation to say “Will o’God!” the way my grandmother used to say it to signify any disaster from burning her hand on the stove to my disinclination to eat eggs in any form. But there was a development Thursday morning that had me scream it off my front porch, to the astonishment of the neighbors and the guys picking up the recyclables three stories down.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chair of the House special committee investigating the insurrection of January 6, is showing himself to have a very deft hand with the stiletto. In response to the duplicity of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who bailed on cooperating with the committee and then launched a comical lawsuit against it, Thompson released a document Meadows had provided to the committee and, WILL O’GOD!, it’s the damndest government record I’ve read since the transcript of the smoking-gun tape was released in August of 1974. And it’s 10 times as insane. Seriously, this thing reads like it was put together by Moe, Larry, and Curly Hitler, except it was received and taken seriously by the stooges who were running the government and organizing resistance to a free election.

You have to wade through a bunch of Sidney Powell-Rudy Giuliani bilge about election ratfcking by China and Venezuela, and a timeline that apparently was put together by someone on blotter acid, to get to the real good stuff, which is about how to steal the election in Washington and to use the American military as your button men.

▪ A full check to weed out counterfeit paper ballots and then a count of the remaining legal ones across the nation must be done for all races in all states and will accurately determine who the people of America actually elected as our leaders.

▪ All ballots must remain locked and physically protected until directed by the federal government.

▪ A task force led by a trustworthy individual (we recommend Sid Gutierrez: NASA Astronaut, retired Air Force Colonel, Center Director at a National Laboratory) produce a standard procedure that will be required and will include full accountability so that counterfeit ballots are excluded and legal ballots are not lost, modified, substituted, or added in.

▪ We estimate counting can be done in each state in 5 to 10 days time with support from identified national assets.

▪ It must be done in full public view (via web broadcast) where each person has the chance to do the count themselves if they so desire. No more hiding behind barriers, distances, secrecy, and gag orders.

Jesus H. Christ on a moon rover, an astronaut???????

And now we’re off.

A Trusted Lead Counter will be appointed with authority from the POTUS to direct the actions of select federalized National Guard units and support from DOJ, DHS and other US government agencies as needed to complete a recount of the legal paper ballots for the federal elections in all 50 states.

▪ US Marshals will immediately secure all ballots and provide a protective perimeter around the locations in all 50 states.

▪ DHS will use their emergency response logistic capabilities to support the effort. They will integrate the IT support that will include separating out the legal from the counterfeit ballots and communications with all supporting the effort and cameras (Possibly cell phones) imaging each and every ballot. These images will be distributed to the Internet.

▪ The federalized National Guard in each state will be supplied detailed processes and be responsible for counting each legitimate paper ballot. Teams made up of three (first couple counties will be five) National Guard members will do the counting. As the counting occurs each ballot will be imaged and the images placed on the Internet so any US citizen can view them and count the ballots themselves. The process will be completely transparent.

Also batshit insane crazy, but do go on.

VP Pence seats Republican Electors over the objections of Democrats in states where fraud occurred VP. Pence rejects the electors from States where fraud occurred causing the election to be decided by remaining electoral votes. VP Pence delays the decision in order to allow for a vetting and subsequent counting of the all the legal paper ballots.

And then he flaps his arms really fast and flies off to QANON glory.

(A reminder: this last idea about seating electors chosen for partisan reasons did not begin on the Lido Deck of this big ship of fools. In 2000, Republican operatives and state legislators formulated the same plan for an alternate slate of Florida electors to be sent to Washington if things didn’t work out at the Supreme Court, and if the state court-mandated recount were allowed to proceed.)

Meadows clearly knew that he’d handed over this seditious sci-fi over to the committee before he bailed on cooperating, so I’m inclined to believe that, perhaps through its gathering of texts and voicemails, the committee obtained further evidence that scared Meadows into withdrawing and then suing the committee itself, which is a doomed and futile effort to run out a clock he no longer controls.

It was, in addition to everything else, weird.

Elsewhere, as reported by the Washington Post, the committee has been digging hard into the money people behind the insurrection. Somebody had to pay for all those hotel rooms. The Post found one of those people…in Tuscany.

Eight days before the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, a little-known Trump donor living thousands of miles away in the Tuscan countryside quietly wired a total of $650,000 to three organizations that helped stage and promote the event. The lack of fanfare was typical of Julie Fancelli, the 72-year-old daughter of the founder of the Publix grocery store chain. Even as she has given millions to charity through a family foundation, Fancelli has lived a private life, splitting time between her homes in Florida and Italy, and doting on her grandchildren, according to family members and friends.

Now, Fancelli is facing public scrutiny as the House committee investigating the insurrection seeks to expose the financing for the rally that preceded the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Fancelli is the largest publicly known donor to the rally, support that some concerned relatives and others attributed to her enthusiasm for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Rich people who are enthusiastic about Alex Jones are the stuff from which nightmares are fashioned.

In the weeks leading up to the rally, Fancelli frequently emailed to her relatives and friends links to Jones’s talk show, according to two people with knowledge of the emails who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications. Jones was a leading proponent of false claims that Trump’s reelection had been foiled by election fraud and that Congress could refuse to certify Biden’s victory.

So how does a crackpot heiress from Tuscany find a way to finance people who live out the dangerous delusions of her favorite talk-radio star? Glad you asked.

Fancelli’s donations related to the rally were arranged by Republican fundraiser Caroline Wren, who was listed on the event permit as a “VIP ADVISOR,” according to records reviewed by The Post and a Republican with knowledge of the contributions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The House committee has issued a subpoena to Wren seeking records and a deposition.

The committee is clearly getting there. I remember Jimmy Breslin writing that Richard Nixon’s political life was being sliced away through paper cuts delivered by the pages of documents in the offices of the special prosecutor and the staff of the House Judiciary Committee. It’s a helpful metaphor.

Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.