I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, December 15th.

The big January 6th story you've probably heard in the last day is that the White House Chief of Staff from

the day, Mark Meadows, has been held in contempt of Congress with a criminal referral for refusing

to testify before the House January 6th Committee, right? But the bigger news might be what Mark

Meadows already revealed to the committee in documents he turned over before ending his cooperation.

We're going to play a two-and-a-half-minute stretch now of Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney,

reading into the record yesterday text messages to and from Mark Meadows that were sent while the deadly capital riot was taking

place, while it was actually going on. Now, you've probably heard that some big Fox News hosts,

and maybe you heard also Donald Trump Jr., was texting Meadows to get Trump to call the rioters off,

right? And you will hear Liz Cheney here, read some of those.

We've bleeped out the S word where it occurs in two of those texts, so the FCC will let us

keep our jobs. But here's a spoiler alert. The most damning bombshell with possible legal consequences

for Trump himself comes at the very end in how Meadows replies to some of these texts.

Again, this is two and a half minutes.

Here's Republican Congresswoman of Wyoming, Liz Cheney.

Members of Congress, the press, and others wrote to Mark Meadows as the attack was underway.

One text Mr. Meadows received said, quote, we are under siege here at the Capitol.

Another, quote, they have breached the Capitol.

In a third, Mark, protesters are literally storming the Capitol,

breaking windows on doors, rushing in. Is Trump going to say something? A fourth, there's an armed

standoff at the House chamber door, and another from someone

inside the Capitol.

...