But instead of echoing the administration’s own Justice Department to tell Trump that his claims of a stolen election were wrong, Meadows went to extraordinary lengths to push Trump’s false assertions — particularly during a crucial three-week period starting with his trip to Atlanta and culminating in the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

A review of Meadows’s actions in that period by The Washington Post — based on interviews, depositions, text messages, emails, congressional documents, recently published memoirs by key players and other material — shows how Meadows played a pivotal role in advancing Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. In doing so, Meadows “repeatedly violated” legal guidance against trying to influence the Justice Department, according to a majority staff report of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Meadows granted those peddling theories about a stolen election direct access to the Oval Office and personally connected some with the president, according to congressional reports and interviews with former White House officials. He pressed the Justice Department to investigate spurious and debunked claims, including a bizarre theory that an Italian operation changed votes in the United States — an allegation a top Justice official called “pure insanity,” according to email correspondence released by congressional investigators. He also pushed the Justice Department, unsuccessfully, to try to invalidate the election results in six states through federal court action.