Jan. 6, and the larger plan to overturn the election

“Yes. Have a team on it,” Mark Meadows texted.

The date was shortly after last November’s presidential election. Mr. Meadows, then President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, was replying to a member of Congress who had asked whether the White House was urging GOP state lawmakers to send alternate pro-Trump electors to Washington.

In other words, would President Trump and his allies try to simply reverse the results in key states, no matter what the voters had actually decided? Mr. Meadows received a number of texts and emails from Republicans...