‘Here’s Mark Meadows, who just sidetracked the entire House Oversight Committee to assure him he’s not racist,’ was posted on twitter by a user hours after a theatrical performance by GOP US Rep. Mark Meadows on Wednesday at the Michael Cohen hearing.

Hours after Rep. Mark Meadows defended himself against suggestions of racism during a fiery exchange with Rep Rashida Tlaib, a pair of old clips of the North Carolina congressman vowing to send former President Obama “home to Kenya or wherever it is” resurfaced online.
“You know what? We’ll send him back home to Kenya or wherever it is. We’ll send him back home.”

During a campaign stop in 2012, Meadows stood in front of a group of people — a “Tea Party Express” bus in the background — and lamented the state of the nation. Obama, first elected to the White House in 2008, was running for re-election at the time.
“We’re going to take back our country. 2012 is the time we’re going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is,” he says in a recorded clip of the event. “We’re going to do it!”

A few days later, Meadows was again recorded at a tea party conference making similar comments.
Then a candidate for Congress, the North Carolina Republican clarified his remarks during an interview with Roll Call in an article titled “Candidate Appears to Flirt with Bitherism.”
“I think it’s a non-issue,” he said.
“Obviously bringing it back is probably a poor choice of words on my part more than anything else. I believe he’s an American citizen and I believe, in my district, he is going to lose overwhelmingly.”

“2012 is the time we are going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is” – Mark Meadows, circa 2012 pic.twitter.com/90L1xnWf6v, was posted by  Steve Morris (@stevemorris__) February 27, 2019  

Obama, who was born in Hawaii, faced repeated accusations that he was not born in the country throughout his time in office,’Fake News’ once perpetuated by President Trump.
Meadows on Thursday rejected the idea that his 2012 comments proved that he was a racist.
“Anyone who knows me knows that there is not a racial bone in my body,” he told CNN when asked about the clips.
The video was shared by critics and left-leaning commentators following Michael Cohen’s testimony in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday.

Meadows brought Housing and Urban development official Lynne Patton, Cohen’s former friend and longtime Trump ally, to the proceedings in response to the former fixer’s claims that the President was racist.

Mark Meadows flirts with Birtherism at 2012 Tea Party conference

“I asked Lynne to come today in her personal capacity to actually shed some light,” Meadows said while Patton stood silently behind him. “She says that as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Ala., that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist.
Tlaib took issue with the move during her allotted time for questioning, calling it “insensitive” to “use a black woman as a prop.”
“As a person of color in this committee, that is how I felt at that moment and I wanted to express that. I’m saying that itself is a racist act,” she said.
“Just because someone has a person of color, a black person working for them, does not mean they aren’t racist.”
Meadows exploded at the suggestion, holding up his niece and nephew of color and his friendship with Oversight Chairman Elijah E. Cummings as evidence of his open-mindedness.

At one point it seemed Tlaib’s comments had Meadows near tears.
Tlaib in an interview with CNN Thursday, said everyone was taken aback by Patton’s presence at the hearing.
“I think all of us, I mean, even folks kind of gasped when that actually happened,” she said. “I think if we want to talk about race in this country, that was not the way to do it.”
When asked whether she believed Meadows to be racist, the Michigan Democrat said it was not up to her to make such a call.
“Look, I feel like that act was, and that’s up for the American people to decide whether he is or not,” she said.