The House select committee investigating the deadly failed insurrection of January 6 continues to scrutinize former President Donald Trump's White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and his role in the events that day.
While Meadows suddenly ceased cooperation with the January 6 committee, he'd already turned over thousands of documents related to the investigation. Nevertheless, he's yet to deliver some other relevant documents housed in his personal cell phone and email.
The reason for his hesitation? Executive privilege.
That's right, Meadows is telling the committee they can't have access to correspondence on his personal accounts and devices because they contain details of his official interactions as White House chief of staff. The House committee responded to this by asking why, if this correspondence was official, Meadows didn't submit the communications to the National Archives, as is protocol.
You'll likely remember that even before the 2016 campaign in which she was the Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was blasted by conservatives for her use of a personal email to conduct official business. Trump himself popularized chants of "lock her up!" insisting that the use of a personal email was criminal.
Never mind that White House officials before and after Clinton used personal devices and accounts while serving, or that the Federal Bureau of Investigation found no criminal wrongdoing in Clinton's actions.
Meanwhile, the personal communications already uncovered by the committee found a powerpoint Meadows included in an email detailing a plot for Trump to declare a national emergency to delay the certification of Biden's victory.
Clinton had a cheeky response to the development.
Especially since his emails were about plotting a coup d'etat, while ours were about gefilte fish. https://t.co/XLYENxoCbn
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 16, 2021
Clinton noted that Meadows entertained plots to subvert the will of the American people, while the thousands of emails Clinton submitted contained mundane musings like whether she and top aide Huma Abedin should be "bad" by ordering a creme brûlée for dessert. One famous email featured the subject line "Gefilte fish," the popular ground fish appetizer.
Contained in the email was a blunt question from Clinton:
"Where are we on this?"
Twitter cackled at her response to the Meadows development.
Easily the best @Maddowblog retweet of all time: https://t.co/owlwwDmxFt
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) December 16, 2021
Madame Secretary got jokes. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/uKA3myR3R2
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) December 17, 2021
Today’s Twitter winner.
👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 https://t.co/drsOIj9rH3
— steven pasquale (@StevePasquale) December 16, 2021
I will again point out that there is NO shade like Hillary shade. https://t.co/GIHxn5Y5kG
— thefabulous💛ne (@thefabulous0ne) December 16, 2021
I love her so much. 🤣 https://t.co/38iPpZc77Z
— RogueHW🇺🇸 (@HwRogue) December 16, 2021
People also agreed that the two were not equivalent.
Clinton’s emails were about overthrowing her diet.
Meadows’ were about overthrowing the country. https://t.co/EYy20moP4I
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) December 16, 2021
Clinton’s emails were about overthrowing her diet.
Meadows’ were about overthrowing the country. https://t.co/EYy20moP4I
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) December 16, 2021
Reminder: In October 2016, @john_kass wrote a column saying that Hillary's emails disqualified her from being President.
He has been silent about use of personal emails for government business by Jared, Ivanka, Pompeo, and Meadows. https://t.co/cO5T0RHF0s
— Judge Dibs (@October1859) December 16, 2021
Double standards abound.