Mark Meadows was warned that January 6 could turn violent but Trump still encouraged his supporters to 'take back your country,' House panel says

• Mark Meadows was warned that January 6 could get out of hand, according to testimony by a former aide.
• A Secret Service official relayed intel to Meadows about January 6 threat, Cassidy Hutchinson told a House panel.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was warned ahead of the Capitol riot that it could get violent, according to a testimony in a 248-page filing released on Friday by the January 6 House select committee investigation.

One of Meadow's former aides, Cassidy Hutchinson, told the panel that a US Secret Service senior official came to Meadows with "concerns" that things could get out of hand, said the filing published by The New York Times.

Anthony Ornato, who served as the Secret Service's Deputy Assistant Director and former President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff for operations, brought "intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th" to Meadows, Hutchinson said, per the filing.

"I'm not sure what he did with that information internally," Hutchinson added.

According to the filing, Hutchinson said that Meadows responded: "All right. Let's talk about it."

The general counsel of the House, Douglas N. Letter, said in the filing, "Despite this and other warnings, President Trump urged the attendees at the January 6th rally to march to the Capitol to 'take back your country.'"

The rally did, as predicted, turn violent. Five people died in the unprecedented storming of the Capitol that resulted in Trump's second impeachment.

The committee presented the evidence to persuade a federal judge to throw out Meadow's suit against the January 6 panel, in which he is trying to block their subpoenas. Meadows alleges that the subpoenas are "overly broad and unduly burdensome."

The House of Representatives voted to hold Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress in December after defying a subpoena from the committee, making him the first chief of staff to be held in contempt of Congress since the Watergate scandal.

The committee also got testimony that the White House counsel's office told Meadows that the scheme to manufacture an alternate slate of electors to try to cast votes for Trump in states that he lost was not "legally sound," per the filing.

Despite the advice, the filing noted, the plan moved forward.