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Mark Meadows
Mark Meadows, who has the title of “senior partner” at the Conservative Partnership Institute, is deeply involved in the organization. Andrew Harnik/AP

How Mark Meadows’ Employer Helped Pay His Legal Bills

A chain of conservative groups funded legal aid for Donald Trump’s former chief of staff in a way one expert said “obscured” what was happening.

Mark Meadows, who has the title of “senior partner” at the Conservative Partnership Institute, is deeply involved in the organization. Andrew Harnik/AP

Mark Meadows’ employer helped form and fund a nonprofit that paid legal bills for Meadows as investigators probed his involvement in alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to tax documents and interviews.

The group, Personnel Policy Operations, was formed in 2022 with a $1.15 million grant from the Conservative Partnership Institute, which employs Meadows, tax documents show. That year, Personnel Policy Operations gave $1.13 million — most of its budget — to a little-known organization called Constitutional Rights Defense Fund. A spokesperson for Personnel Policy Operations told NOTUS the money that year went to pay lawyers for Meadows and Jeffrey Clark, another ex-Trump administration official.

The series of transactions “was based off of [Conservative Partnership Institute] processes and how they were doing things at the time,” said a spokesperson for Personnel Policy Operations who requested anonymity to discuss the transactions. The organization has developed a formal process for distributing legal aid since 2022, the spokesperson said.