Mark Meadows Pushed ‘Patently Absurd’ Conspiracy Theory That Italian Government Interfered In Election

In a new report, the January 6 Committee revealed that Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pursued a conspiracy theory linking the Italian government to election fraud in the 2020 election.

Meadows asked Deputy Attorney General Jeffery Rosen to investigate a hoax that claimed President Barack Obama, the CIA and the Italian government were working together to disrupt voting machines.

In a message obtained from Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania), he wrote to Meadows, “Why can’t we just work with the Italian government?”

The conspiracy was reportedly gathered from false information gained through right-wing groups on  4-Chan and TheDonald.win.

After being published on YouTube by Brad Johnson, the hoax was made mainstream by QAnon conspiracy theorists.

The claim also gained attention through a right-wing Italian news reporter who claimed that the Trump Administration was investigating whether the U.S. ambassador in Rome was attempting to manipulate the election results.

After Perry brought the video to Meadows, the false report was relayed to the acting Attorney General Richard Donoghue.

During his testimony, Donoghue stated that the claims made in the YouTube video were “pure insanity” and “patently absurd.”

At one point, Meadows suggested Rosen meet with Johnson to discuss the false findings.

Rosen stated, “I told [Meadows] that this whole thing about Italy had been debunked and that should be the end of that and I certainly wasn’t going to meet with [Johnson].”

Rosen was shocked that a baseless conspiracy would reach the highest levels of government.

“Because Mr. Donoghue and I had been exchanging our views about this… I had run out of patience… and I made it pretty clear that I had no interest in going further with this,” Rosen said.