Capitol attack panel obtains PowerPoint that set out plan for Trump to stage coup

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows turned over to the House select committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack a PowerPoint recommending Donald Trump to declare a national security emergency in order to return himself to the presidency.

Meadows turned over a version of the PowerPoint presentation that he received in an email and spanned 38 pages, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The Guardian reviewed a second, 36-page version of the PowerPoint marked for dissemination with 5 January metadata, which had some differences with what the select committee received. But the title of the PowerPoint and its recommendations remained the same, the source said.

Senators and members of Congress should first be briefed about foreign interference, the PowerPoint said, at which point Trump could declare a national emergency, declare all electronic voting invalid, and ask Congress to agree on a constitutionally acceptable remedy.

The PowerPoint also outlined three options for then vice-president Mike Pence to abuse his largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress on 6 January, when Biden was to be certified president, and unilaterally return Trump to the White House.

The then acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, and his predecessor, Bill Barr, who had both been appointed by Trump, by 5 January had already determined that there was no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election.

The select committee announced on Wednesday that in response, it would refer Meadows for criminal prosecution for defying a subpoena. The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said the vote to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress would come next week.