White House responds to revelation of text from GOP lawmaker to Mark Meadows: ‘A disgusting affront’

Biden official condemns message calling for Trump chief of staff to declare martial law to remain in office

Three days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Republican US Rep Ralph Norman texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to urge Donald Trump to “declare marshall [sic] law” in an apparent attempt to keep him in office.

The message, obtained by Talking Points Memo, is among dozens reviewed by the political news outlet between Mr Meadows and GOP lawmakers planning to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

“Plotting against the rule of law and to subvert the will of the people is a disgusting affront to our deepest principles as a country,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement. “We all, regardless of party, need to stand up for mainstream values and the Constitution, against dangerous, ultra MAGA conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric.”

On 17 January 2021, days after the attack on the US Capitol, fuelled by Mr Trump’s baseless narrative that the election was “stolen” from him, Mr Norman texted Mr Meadows about spurious lawsuits aimed at Dominion Voting Systems, a voting machines company at the centre of rampant election-related conspiracy theories. The company subsequently filed multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuits against Fox News, One America News Network, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell and Sidney Powell, among others.

“Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !!” Mr Norman wrote. “Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!”

Mr Meadows was ordered to run over hundreds of messages to the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.

Asked about the text, Mr Norman told HuffPost: “Well, I misspelled ‘martial.’”

“I was very frustrated then, I’m frustrated now,” he told the outlet. “I was frustrated then by what was going on in the Capitol. President Biden was in his basement the whole year. Dominion was raising all [kinds of] questions.”

The South Carolina representative also told his home state news outlet The State that the text came from a “source of frustration” and “on the heels of countless unanswered questions about the integrity of the 2020 election, without any way to slow down and examine those issues prior to the inauguration of the newly elected president.”

Far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – who had not yet been sworn into office at the time – also had texted Mr Meadows suggesting then-President Trump should declare martial law, including misspelling the word as Mr Norman did.

“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall [sic] law,” she wrote, according to messages obtained by CNN earlier this year.

“I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him,” she said. “They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”

On Saturday, Ms Greene appeared at a black-tie gala in New York City with an audience of far-right publishers and personalities, suggesting to the crowd that if she had organised the attack, “we would have won” and they “would’ve been armed.”

Mr Bates told CBS News that her statement to the New York Young Republicans Club “goes against our fundamental values as a country for a Member of Congress to wish that the carnage of [January 6] had been even worse and to boast that she would have succeeded in an armed insurrection against the United States government”.

“Violent rhetoric is a slap in the face to the Capitol Police, the DC Metropolitan Police, the National Guard, and the families who lost loved ones as a result of the attack on the Capitol,” he added. “All leaders have a responsibility to condemn these dangerous, abhorrent remarks and stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law.”