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The North Carolina Department of Justice announced Friday that there was “not enough evidence” to accuse former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and his wife Debra Meadows over allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“Because my office has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond reasonable suspicion against Mr. or Mrs. Meadows, my office will not prosecute this case,” said North Carolina. Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, said: statement. “We reserve the right to reopen this matter should further information related to the allegations of voter fraud come to light in subsequent investigations or prosecutions by authorities in other jurisdictions.”
The investigation began after The New Yorker reported that former North Carolina Republican congressman Mark Meadows had registered to vote in a Macon County mobile home just weeks before the 2020 election. . The article claims that an anonymous former owner of McConnell Road in Scaly Mountain has never visited the Meadows, never “spent a night there”, and that his wife has “been in the past few I had the house reserved for two months at some point in the year,” he quoted him as saying. I can’t remember the exact time, but he only spent one or two nights there. ”
According to North Carolina voter records, Meadows registered on September 22, 2020 at an address in Skerry Mountain. He cast an absentee ballot in his 2020 general election. He was removed from North Carolina’s voter rolls in his April after Meadows was found to be registered to vote in three of his states at the same time.
A prosecutor’s memo outlining the decision not to indict the couple stated that Mark Meadows “has very little physical presence at the Scaly Mountain address,” according to U.S. Secret Service records. , it is shown that he does not take official trips and does not request unaccompanied travel. From September 2020 he can go to North Carolina until November 2020. However, state law “does not require a federal employee to be physically present in North Carolina to reside in and vote in North Carolina,” the memo said.
The memo also notes that both Mark and Debra Meadows declined to be interviewed by the State Bureau of Investigation investigating the alleged fraud.
According to Friday’s release from Stein’s office, “important facts” (1) He is eligible for a residence exception under state law because he worked in public service in Washington, DC. (2) Mr. and Mrs. Meadows signed his one-year lease on his Mountain mansion, Scaly, provided by the landlord. (3) Cell phone records showed Debra Meadows was in and around Skary Mountain in October 2020.
State prosecutors said the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor charge related to false information on voter forms expired when the office received the report. In order to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that he had committed a felony by deliberately taking oath, he decided that it was “unlikely to succeed.”
Mark Meadows left Congress in March 2020 to serve as White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump, a position he held until Trump resigned in January the following year. The recent release of the minutes by his January 6 committee of the House of Representatives included several revelations related to Meadows by his former aide, Cassidy Hutchinson. They say he regularly burned documents during the president’s transition period, occasionally “closed” some Oval Office meetings to staff, and could be excluded from official records. It contains the exposure that
In a statement on Friday, Stein said Mark Meadows “made numerous unsubstantiated and damaging allegations of voter misconduct before and after the 2020 election,” adding, “The bipartisan Jan. 6 A congressional committee has named Mr Meadows as a likely co-conspirator.” About his central role in the January 6 uprising. ”
“None of the issues related to January 6, however, relate to the specific allegations of voter fraud concerning Mr. and Mrs. Meadows, which have been referred to my office for investigation,” Stein added.
This story has been updated with additional information.