Trump’s Chief of Staff Pushed His Boss’ Voter Fraud Lie. He’s Facing Questions.

Mark Meadows got a ballot in 2020 using the address of a Macon County, NC home he never owned. 

A New Yorker article published this week raised questions about whether Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, voted legally when he voted by mail in the last election. 

Meadows was a Republican congressman from Western North Carolina before becoming Trump’s top aide. He also was one of the most prominent people in Trump’s orbit pushing false claims of widespread voter fraud through absentee ballots in the election’s aftermath.  

In 2020, Meadows had a couple addresses he was using.

There was his work address —–1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. —also known as the White House, where Meadows served as Trump’s top aide. 

But when he requested a ballot to vote by mail in the 2020 election, the former North Carolina congressman used another address: that of an older manufactured home with a rusted roof on a Macon County mountain road. 

Meadows registered the Scaly Mountain manufactured home with election officials as his address in late September 2020, and shortly thereafter requested an absentee ballot to vote in the November election, North Carolina voter records show. 

Problem is, Meadows never owned the property, and there’s no evidence he ever resided there either, as The New Yorker and other outlets reported this week. Meadows’ wife rented the home from a former owner at some point in recent years for a family getaway that didn’t include Meadows, The New Yorker reported.

The current owner bought the place in early September 2020 and told the magazine that Meadows’ use of the Scaly Mountain address to vote was “Really weird.”

Voter and election fraud cases are relatively rare in North Carolina, and the country as a whole, while  civil liberties groups have questioned disproportionate targeting of people of color in the few cases that are pursued. That includes the case of a Black Dallas woman sentenced to five years in prison after she tried to cast a ballot in 2016, unaware that she couldn’t do so while serving out a federal probationary sentence. 

Knowingly providing false information on a voter registration form is a felony

Meadows could also face criminal contempt charges for refusing to answer a Congressional panel’s questions about his role leading up to the violent Jan. 6, 2021 attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol.