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A report recommending former Trump administration chief of staff Mark Meadows be held in contempt claims Meadows said the National Guard troops would protect former President Donald Trump's supporters during the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, NBC News reports.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots released a report -- which included bullet points listing urgent questions for Meadows -- that accused the former chief of staff of sending an email on January 5 regarding the security of the former president's supporters who planned to protest in Washington, D.C. the following day.
NBC News reports the identity of the email recipient was not made public by the committee.
“Mr. Meadows sent an email to an individual about the events on January 6 and said that the National Guard would be present to 'protect pro Trump people' and that many more would be available on standby,” the report stated.
NBC News reached out to Meadows' attorney, but didn't immediately receive a response for comment.
Videos of the incident showed Capitol Police appearing to be overwhelmed by the large crowd of Trump supporters during the insurrection, while the National Guard was delayed in its response.
Earlier this month, a former D.C. National Guard official accused two Army generals of lying under oath during their testimony about the military's response to the January 6 insurrection while testifying before congress, Politico reported.
In a 36-page memo to the House committee investigating the January 6 incident, Col. Earl Matthews claimed Gen. Charles Flynn, who served as the deputy chief of staff for operations at the time of the insurrection, and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, the director of the Army staff "repeatedly misrepresented, understated, or misled" the House Oversight Committee and the Defense Department's inspector general in relation to the investigation of the incident.
Matthews, who served as the top attorney to Maj. Gen. William Walker on January 6, the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, accused Piatt of misleading congress regarding the guard's "capability, readiness and motivation" in its response efforts during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Matthews also said the generals "falsely claimed" that the military branch didn't have the proper training or resources to shift from traffic control to civil disturbance operations, calling Flynn and Piatt "absolute and unmitigated liars" for their recanting of the guard's response to the incident.
"Flynn falsely stated that the Army Staff (which is supposed to be running the global operations of the U.S. Army) had to devote 30 to 40 officers and non-commissioned officers to get 154 ill-prepared DC Guardsmen to Capitol Hill," Matthews wrote in his memo. "This assertion constituted the willful deception of Congress. It is not just imprecision, it is lying. Senior Army officers lied about little stuff."
The release of the memo came weeks after Walker, now retired from the military and serving at the Capitol as House sergeant-at-arms, publicly demanded the retraction of an inspector general report that claimed Army leaders had to tell him twice to send troops to the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection, which he said was false and needs to be corrected.