Donald Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, has agreed to sit down and testify before the House Committee regarding the Capitol insurrection. Prior to his upcoming testimony, Meadows made one damning revelation about the former president involving his first debate with Joe Biden.
The Guardian reported that Meadows revealed in an upcoming book that the former president had actually tested positive for COVID-19 three days before his first presidential debate against Joe Biden. But the sudden revelation was met with skepticism, especially as the revelation was made just as Meadows is set to testify before the House Committee regarding his knowledge of what transpired behind the scenes about the insurrection.
“Nonetheless, the stunning revelation of an unreported positive test follows a year of speculation about whether Trump, then 74 years old, had the potentially deadly virus when he faced Biden, 77, in Cleveland, on 29 September — and what danger that might have presented,” said the report.
Politico Playbook co-author and CNN contributor Rachel Bade described the sudden revelation as “irresponsible” and also questioned the timing of the revelation, noting that the Trump White House was determined to make it seem like the now-former president was not suffering from COVID at the time.
Regarding the timing, Bade suggested that Meadows, knowing that his compliance with the subpoena presented to him would make headlines, made the revelation to distract from the fact that he was set to testify before the committee.
The former president has sought to block the National Archives from releasing documents related to the insurrection to the House Committee, maintaining that he has the right to invoke executive privilege. Biden has already authorized the Archives to turn over the documents, repeatedly waiving any claims of executive privilege made by his immediate predecessor.
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, three legal experts exposed a flaw in the former president’s legal defense. They argued that it would be inappropriate for the courts to rule in favor of Trump. They also said that the former president is only looking to delay the release until after the 2022 midterm elections in the event that the Republicans regain the majority in the House.