North Carolina is investigating Mark Meadows for potential voter fraud

(Image credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

North Carolina's Department of Justice said Thursday that it has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into reports that Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump's final White House chief of staff and a former congressman, committed voter fraud in 2020, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general told WRAL and other news organizations.

The New Yorker and WRAL reported earlier this month that Meadows and his wife registered to vote a few weeks before the 2020 election using an address for a mobile home in rural Macon County that they rented that year but rarely, if ever, visited. The mobile home now has a new owner, and the former landlord said she doesn't think Mark Meadows ever even set foot in the place, much less resided there. Mark and Debra Reynolds both voted absentee from Virginia in 2020.

Ashley Welch, the district attorney for Macon County, said in a March 14 letter to the North Carolina attorney general's office that she "was unaware of any allegations of voter fraud surrounding Mark Meadows" until the media contacted her, and given that Meadows contributed to her 2014 campaign and appeared in political ads for her, "it is in the best interest of justice and the best interest of the people of North Carolina that the attorney general's office handles the prosecution of this case."

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"We have asked the SBI to investigate and at the conclusion of the investigation, we'll review their findings," Nazneen Ahmed, press secretary for the North Carolina DOJ, said in a statement. Meadows, who "helped amplify false claims of voter fraud in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election," The New York Times notes, did not respond to requests for comment.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.