‘Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa’: Jake Tapper Has No Patience for Mark Meadows’ Selective Executive Privilege Claims

CNN’s Ryan Nobles obtained a copy of Mark Meadows’ upcoming book in which the former chief-of-staff to Donald Trump dedicates some pages to the January 6 Capitol riot. Meadows has been subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the attack. The panel is trying to determine the extent of the coordination behind the attack and who may have been involved.

Meadows has agreed to appear before the committee, but has suggested that he is unable to talk to investigators about certain matters because of executive privilege.

Meadows, Nobles told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday, “makes a number of claims about the events of that day that will be of special interest to the January 6th select committee. First of all, he claims there was no coordinated effort by the White House or the campaign to try and encourage people to storm the Capitol on that day.”

Nobles said Meadows claimed that the idea for Trump to give a speech to supporters in Washington D.C. on the morning of January 6 was “organic.” Quoting directly from Meadows’ book, Nobles relayed that Trump “did not call for violence and he did not expect that anyone would enter the Capitol building.”

Nobles then pointed out that Trump had suggested those attending his speech march to the Capitol.

“Now this is despite the fact that on that day, President Trump specifically encouraged his supporters to march down to the Capitol after his speech,” Nobles said. “Meadows claims that that was just ad-libbed and that the president was only being metaphorical, that he didn’t actually intend for anyone to go down to the Capitol despite specifically requesting that they do so. And for Meadows’ viewpoint on that day, Jake, he believes that everyone that was there on the Ellipse that day really didn’t take the president seriously.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Ryan,” Tapper responded. “Because Mark Meadows is trying to claim executive privilege. He’s saying he can’t talk to the January 6th committee about his interactions with then-President Trump. But he’s writing about his interactions with President Trump, the same events that the January 6th committee wants to ask him about? And it’s like he’s just doing it in a book to make money?”

“That appears to be exactly what he is doing, Jake,” Nobles replied. “As we said before, he doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about January 6th, but he does specifically talk about that conversation that he had with President Trump as he left the stage on that day.”

Nobles noted Meadows will appear before the committee next week, and it remains to be seen how cooperative he will be.

“Maybe they should offer to pay him,” Tapper quipped.

Watch above via CNN.