Ex-Overstock CEO: Mark Meadows was present at wild White House meeting about seizing voting machines

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows participated in a contentious meeting that explored the idea of seizing voting machines with Donald Trump, according to a person who was present and testified before the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6.

Patrick Byrne, who lives in Nokomis, told the Herald-Tribune that Meadows was on speakerphone when a group of Sarasota County residents presented Trump with options for exposing voter fraud and possibly overturning the 2020 presidential election.

Meadows' potential involvement in the meeting – which took place on Dec. 18, 2020 – has not been previously reported. His name was not mentioned during a committee hearing on July 12 that dissected the meeting and featured testimony from several of the people who were there, either.

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Meadows, who refused to testify before the committee and has been held in contempt, could not be reached for comment concerning Byrne's claim.

His alleged non-action during the hours of the Capitol attack and his willingness to help Trump spread the election fraud lie has come under scrutiny, only heightened by the recent testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, his former aide. She has also said Meadows attempted to secure a pardon from Trump for potential criminal offenses.

What did Patrick Byrne say about the White House meeting?

Byrne, in addition to claiming Meadows was present at the meeting, confirmed to the Herald-Tribune via text that he gave testimony to the House select committee on Friday.

He did not respond when asked if he plans to testify under oath that Meadows was present at the meeting.

The former CEO of Overstock.com briefly mentioned that Meadows attended the meeting on a March 16 video he made. He described the video as a statement to the select committee, his version of what happened on Dec. 18, 2020.

The meeting with Trump, which lasted for many hours and moved into different parts of the White House, was extraordinary on several fronts.

The meeting was attended by Byrne, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former White House staffer Emily Newman, all of whom live in Sarasota County. Attorney Sidney Powell, who also has ties to the area, was also there.

The four were let into the White House by a staffer, catching even Trump by surprise in the Oval Office. Still, Trump agreed to see them.

According to Byrne's videotaped version of events, Flynn, Powell and Newman sat before Trump, while Byrne was seated a row behind. Byrne said they were alone with Trump for 20 to 30 minutes before White House attorney Pat Cipollone found out and “set a new land-speed record’’ running to the Oval Office, according to Powell's committee testimony.

Byrne said the group had six documents they presented to Trump.

Two were separate executive orders signed by Barack Obama and Trump, he said, granting presidents certain power in the event of foreign interference in an election.

There were three FBI documents, Byrne said, including one that claimed Iran had hacked into the system of the U.S. and secured access to voter registrations in at least one state.

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The group, Byrne said, was trying to bowtie the FBI documents to the executive orders, giving Trump the power to act on the election fraud he perceived to be rampant in the country.

"What are you folks saying to me?" Byrne said Trump asked the group.

"Put us in, coach," Byrne said he responded on behalf of the group.

Byrne said he gave Trump three options and even practiced them in the mirror of his hotel room in anticipation of getting into the White House that evening.

"I'm the guy who laid it all out (to Trump)," Byrne said in his video.

First, Trump had a choice of looking into six, 12, or 31 counties where the group thought fraud occurred. Trump went with six.

Then, according to Byrne, they had to decide what to investigate. The options included opening ballot boxes in those six counties on live TV; taking images of the hard drives and routers of the machines, or actually seizing the machines and bringing them somewhere for examination. Byrne said they agreed taking the images was the way to go.

So who was going to do it? The FBI and Department of Homeland Security were mentioned, Byrne said in his video, but they thought for optic's sake that the U.S. Marshals and the National Guard were better choices to obtain images of the hard drives,

It was at this point, Byrne said in his video, that Trump asked for advice from Rudy Giuliani and Meadows, both of whom were listening on speakerphone.

The Byrne group also came up with an executive order that was drafted on Dec. 16, 2020 – two days before the meeting – that would allow Trump to obtain the hard drive images and make Powell counsel during the investigation.

According to committee testimony, in fact, some inside the White House actually thought Trump had made Powell counsel.

Cipollone: No one was 'providing the president with good advice'

While Byrne describes the meeting in his video as a pillow fight, others claim it was more like a pro wrestling match.

Cipollone testified to the committee that once he walked into the Oval Office, looked around the room, turned to Byrne, and said, ‘Who are you?’’’

Byrne and Cipollone were in heated arguments for the rest of the night and former White House attorney Eric Hershmann and Flynn nearly got into fisticuffs, according to reports.

"I don't think any of these people were providing the president with good advice," Cipollone said.

"I have no reason to lie," Byrne said in his video. "I don't like these guys. I don't like the lawyer. I don't like Mark Meadows. I have no obligation to anyone.

"I was just a citizen then. I could have said anything I wanted. I didn't even vote for Trump. I have nothing but a desire to get history precisely correct.'' 

Contact Chris Anderson at chris.anderson@heraldtribune.com. Please support local journalism by purchasing a digital subscription.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota County resident: Mark Meadows was at infamous White House meeting