What Happened to the Net Worth of Mark Meadows?
People with an interest in U.S. politics might have heard of Mark Meadows. This is because he has been involved in it since 2013, as shown by his stint as a Congressman as well as his subsequent stint as the White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.
For those who are unfamiliar, Meadows was born to a soldier and a nurse in Verdun, France. However, he was raised in Brandon, FL, with the result that he went on to receive an education at the University of South Florida.
Meadows claimed to have received a Bachelor of Arts from said institution for a few years, but the truth was that he received an Associate of Arts from said institution instead.
Regardless, Meadows went on to become a businessman. He started up a small restaurant called "Aunt D's," which provided him with the funds needed to start a real estate development company when he sold it at a later point in time. Thanks to that, Meadows is known to have become quite well-off before he entered into U.S. politics.
Meadows Becomes a Congressman
In 2013, Meadows became a Congressman representing North Carolina's 11th congressional district. He was notable for being an ultraconservative. This can be seen in how Meadows was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, which is made up of the most conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.
However, there are plenty of other examples as well. One would be how Meadows voted against disaster relief spending after Hurricane Sandy. Something that was brought up again when he and a number of other Republicans voted for disaster relief spending after Hurricane Harvey.
Supposedly, said individuals justified their decision by claiming that the first bill contained pork while the second bill contained no pork, but this claim wasn't supported by a review carried out by the Congressional Research Service.
Besides this, Meadows also played important roles in both the shutdown of the federal government in 2013 and the attempt to remove John Boehner as the speaker of the House in 2015.
Becoming Chief of Staff
Having said that, a lot of people will be most familiar with Meadows because of more recent events. This is because he was a notable Trump supporter, so much so that he became the White House chief of staff in 2020. There, Meadows was involved in a number of controversial events in one way or another.
For example, he recommended against endorsing mask-wearing during the COVID-19 crisis because as far as he was concerned, the Republican base wouldn't go for it. Similarly, when he tested positive for COVID-19, he informed a small number of people but told them to keep it a secret, thus endangering other staff members.
On top of this, Meadows was very involved in the Republican efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election on the basis of false claims of systemic fraud. He is known to have urged Georgia's Secretary of State to overturn the certification of the state's election results.
Furthermore, he is known to have pointed Trump to Mark Martin, a retired judge who made the claim that Vice President Mike Pence could just refuse to count the electoral votes from the states that went for Biden. As such, Meadows was subpoenaed for records as well as testimony by the congressional committee looking into the 2021 U.S. Capitol incident, which promises to make for further events of interest in the future because he failed to show up.
What Is Interesting about Mark Meadows's Net Worth?
In any case, Mark Meadows's net worth is something that has been brought up by the news from time to time. Primarily, this is because of two reasons, which are particularly interesting when put together.
First, Meadows was said to have been one of the richest individuals to enter the U.S. House of Representatives in 2013. His exact net worth was unclear for obvious reasons. However, most sources agreed that he was a multi-millionaire at that point in time.
For example, Business Insider estimated that he had a net worth of between $1,674,034 and $12,017,998, most of which came from his ownership of the aforementioned real estate development company. Similarly, OpenSecrets estimated that he had an estimated net worth of $4,219,009 in 2014, which falls within that range.
Why Has His Net Worth Gone Down?
Second, the strange thing is that Meadows's net worth seems to have gone down by a considerable amount ever since he became a Congressman in 2013. Once again, it isn't clear how much his net worth has gone down by. However, Salon says that his net worth might have fallen below $1 million, which if true, is a catastrophic fall.
The whole thing is particularly eyebrow-raising because Meadows has been involved in a number of financial irregularities over that period. For example, he was fined $40,000 by the House Ethics Committee in 2018 because he continued paying a staffer for months after he fired said individual because of sexual harassment issues.
Similarly, Meadows has been known to fail to disclose financial information more than once, which is the kind of thing that tends to make curious individuals wonder what is going on.
Further Considerations
Unfortunately, there is no real way for the public to know what is going on at this point in time. There is very good reason to believe that Meadows's net worth has indeed fallen by an enormous amount over less than a decade's time. However, the extent of the fall is unclear.
Furthermore, there is no obvious explanation for what has happened. It is interesting to note that Meadows has run into the same issue as a lot of other people who worked for the Trump administration, which is that he has found it difficult to find another position afterwards.
In fact, there were reports that he considered taking a job with the Trump Organization at one point in time, though he eventually wound up with a conservative political group instead. Regardless, as mentioned earlier, Meadows is still very much a subject of interest in U.S. politics, so it is possible that more information will come out in the times ahead.
You can also read:
Written by Allen Lee
Read more posts by Allen Lee
