April 23 (UPI) -- New evidence presented in court filings indicate top Republican lawmakers met with President Donald Trump's chief of staff in December 2020 to brainstorm ways to overturn Joe Biden's victory.
A deposition filed late Friday by the House of Representatives' select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots revealed that Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, told the panel her boss conferred either in person or by phone with some of Trump's staunchest congressional supporters on efforts to nullify the 2020 election results.
Among the GOP lawmakers named by Hutchinson as taking part in such discussions were Reps. Scott Perry, R-Pa., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
In all, at least 10 members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus met with Meadows on Dec. 21, 2020, with some expressing support for an unfounded legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally reject states' electoral votes on Jan. 6, Hutchinson told the committee.
"They felt that he had the authority to -- pardon me if my phrasing isn't correct on this, but -- send votes back to the States or the electors back to the States," Hutchinson stated.
The document was entered into evidence as part of a lawsuit filed by Meadows in an effort to block a subpoena issued to him by the panel following his refusal to cooperate with its investigation of the deadly riots.
Meadows sued House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the committee after the panel said it planned to move forward with criminal contempt proceedings against him for failing to comply with the subpoena.
Hutchinson's testimony shed new light on how closely involved some of Trump's top congressional allies were in his efforts to overturn Biden's victory.
According to the deposition, she told the committee that in addition to discussing using Pence to block the results, Meadows and the key lawmakers met directly with the vice president's staff in a bid to convince him to follow along with the scheme.
The White House counsel's office, Hutchinson stated, explicitly advised Meadows that the efforts by Trump's backers to nullify the election results were "not legally sound."
Meadows' former aide also testified that her boss had received information that "indicated that there could be violence on the 6th" -- specifically a warning coming from then-White House chief of operations Anthony Ornato.
Meadows responded to the concerns by saying, "All right. Let's talk about it," according to the testimony.
"The Select Committee's filing today urges the Court to reject Mark Meadows's baseless claims and put an end to his obstruction of our investigation," panel chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in joint statement.
"Mr. Meadows is hiding behind broad claims of executive privilege even though much of the information we're seeking couldn't possibly be covered by privilege and courts have rejected similar claims because the committee's interest in getting to the truth is so compelling," they said.
