The Big Steal and the Big Lie: What the Mark Meadows Texts Reveal about the Coup Plot

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Back when Mark Meadows nominally was cooperating with the January 6 investigation, he turned over 2,319 text messages from his cell phone to the Committee. These are only the communications Meadows affirmatively decided to release; he withheld, by contrast, all messages from between December 9 and December 20, and those may be even more revealing. Yet the texts already paint a fairly wide picture of behind-the-scenes efforts to overturn the November 2020 election results (what I call the “Big Steal”) and well as key pushback from even within the Trump camp on false election fraud claims (the “Big Lie”).

The Big Steal: Right after November 3, Efforts Began to Undo the Election Results

Trump’s circle wasted no time before they began exploring ways to effectuate the Big Steal. On November 5, Don Trump Jr. texted Meadows a plan that the campaign later wound up tracking quite closely in the months that followed. “It’s very simple,” he wrote. He advocated filing lawsuits and pressing for recounts to prevent certain swing states from certifying their election results, as well as having certain Republican-controlled state houses put forward slates of Trump electors. “Republicans control Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina etc we get Trump electors,” he said, parroting an idea floated by conservative talk show host Mark Levin which relied on a bogus theory that state legislatures, and not the voters, ultimately had the say over the results of their presidential elections.

And if that didn’t work, Trump Jr. noted that the GOP in Congress could simply vote to have Trump stay on as president, though how that plan would get past a Democrat-controlled House is unclear. “We have operational control Total leverage,” he wrote. “Moral High Ground POTUS must start 2nd term now.”

This text thread appears to expand on the idea, apparently originating from former Energy Secretary Rick Perry and texted to Meadows on November 4, calling for an “AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY” for three state legislatures to usurp the will of their voters and instead send Republican elector slates who would vote instead for Donald Trump. While Perry’s office has denied that he was the author of the text, that is contradicted by the message itself, which is signed by him and originates from his cell phone. (Republican denials in the face of documented evidence are growing increasingly common, from Kevin McCarthy’s recorded calls about asking Trump to resign to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s text calling for “Marshall” law, unearthed just a day after she claimed under oath that she could not recall ever advocating for it.)

The texts also reveal that some in the Trump camp grew opposed to the Big Steal in its final form and made their views known to Meadows. Sen. Mike Lee only was prepared to endorse the plan if the states legitimately appointed competing slates of electors rather than the apparently fake sets organized by Rudy Giuliani and others. “I have grave concerns with the way my friend Ted (Cruz) is going about this effort,” Lee texted Meadows. “This will not inure to the benefit of the president. Everything changes, of course, if the swing states submit competing slates of electors pursuant to state law.” And Rep. Chip Roy, who had been a solid supporter of the former president, even texted Meadows on January 1, 2021 saying, “If POTUS allows this to occur... we’re driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic…”

These texted warnings add to a growing set of evidence that the White House was warned specifically that the path it was pursuing with the Big Steal was not legally supportable and that their efforts were little more than a “coup in search of a legal theory,” as federal Judge David Carter wrote recently in an order finding that Donald Trump and lawyer John Eastman likely committed at least two federal felonies.

The Big Lie: Many in the Trump Camp Didn’t Buy It and Made That Clear To Meadows

One of the most perplexing questions has been whether the White House, including the former president and his chief of staff, believed its own bold statements that the election had been stolen. This matters if not from a legal standpoint then from a moral one: If you really thought you were acting to save the Republic, as many insurrectionists on January 6, 2021 apparently believed, then your actions, while still illegal, might at least be more understandable. One can imagine the reaction should the situation be reversed in 2024, with CNN and MSNBC reporting widespread vote irregularities in the swing states, but secretaries of state and governors going ahead and certifying the election anyway for Trump. A certain sector of the left might take to the streets, and they even could wind up protesting the electoral counting in January 2025.

This is why the truth matters, and why we must also ask whether Republican leaders should have known that their election fraud claims were bogus. Meadows’ texts so far reveal that there was a range of election fraud claims, from the mundane to the wild, and that Meadows was a central point for their reception. But they also show that some Republican allies of Trump had grown disillusioned with the fraud claims and later refused to take his side come January 6, demonstrating that the proper course of action when there are serious claims of fraud is to demand real substance and evidence.

The Meadows text messages reveal that the most bizarre claims around Dominion voting machines and Venezuelan software, promulgated by “kraken” attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, made some of Trump’s congressional allies and Meadows himself quite nervous, and they began backing off from the Trump lawyer team as champions of their cause. “I’m worried about the Powell press conference,” texted Sen. Mike Lee to Meadows. “The potential defamation liability for the president is significant here.” He continued, “Unless Powell can back up everything she said, which I kind of doubt she can.” Meadows texted back, “I agree. Very concerned.” Rep. Chip Roy wrote on November 22, 2020, “Frigging Rudy needs to hush,” while Lee concluded, “Unless Powell can immediately substantiate what she said today, the president should probably disassociate himself and refute any claims that can’t be substantiated.” Both Roy and Lee later voted not to object to the election results.

Even Trump’s own campaign staff and closest advisors were skeptical of the fraud claims. On November 6, just three days into the challenges, Trump’s senior campaign advisor Jason Miller sent a text to a group that included Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner, Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Bill Stepien and Ivanka Trump. In it, Miller cast serious doubt upon the “urban vote stealing narrative” that had been circulating widely on right-wing media:

One other key data point: In 2016, POTUS received 15.5% of the vote in Philadelphia County. ‘Today he is currently at 18.3%. ‘So he increased from his performance in 2016. In 2016, Philadelphia County made up 11.3% of the total vote in the state. ‘As it currently stands, Philadelphia County only makes up 10.2% of the statewide vote tally. So POTUS performed better in a smaller share. Sen. Santorum was just making this point on CNN - cuts hard against the urban vote stealing narrative.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also took issue with one of the most explosive but false claims around a suitcase of ballots in Fulton County, Georgia. On December 4, he texted an article to Meadows debunking the claim that election workers there had retrieved fake ballots from a suitcase hidden under a table. A full viewing of the entire video showed plainly that the suitcase had been put under the table earlier when the workers stopped counting for the night and was only retrieved when they resumed. As I wrote about earlier, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger brought up this full video specifically during Trump’s infamous “I need to find 11,780 votes” call as evidence that Trump’s claim about vote fraud in Georgia was simply wrong. Yet the White House continued to press the false narrative, with Trump himself even repeating the untrue suitcase story at his speech at the Ellipse on the day of January 6, 2021. The January 6 Committee has cited the persistent “suitcase of ballots” conspiracy as evidence that Trump and his allies knew their statements about a stolen election were false yet knowingly committed fraud by repeating the narrative.

In sum, many of Trump’s closest allies and family knew there was no evidence of a stolen election. Trump’s congressional allies Mike Lee and Chip Roy knew it. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner knew it. His senior campaign advisor Jason Miller knew it. And they all texted Meadows the truth. 

Seen in this light, the Trump campaign’s continued pursuit of the Big Steal to hang onto power can no longer hide behind the assertion of the Big Lie that they were trying to save the Republic from election fraud. The texts show that others knew and warned that the Big Lie was false and the Big Steal—ultimately involving numerous fake slates of state electors and the vice president asserting powers he simply did not have—was patently unconstitutional and illegal. We should expect that the Committee will set out this summer to make this very case to the American public, with the Justice Department presumably watching closely, even while it quietly proceeds with its currently empaneled federal grand jury investigating the organizers of the January 6 rally and subsequent deadly insurrection.