The day after Mr Meadows was accused of committing a “racist act” during Cohen’s testimony, an unearthed video from 2012 features the North Carolina Republican saying he wanted then-President Barack Obama to go back “home to Kenya.”

“Anyone who knows me knows that there is not a racial bone in my body,” Mr Meadows told CNN, in defence of the documented racist remarks.“It was early on in a primary and certainly didn’t indicate any personal malice that I would have toward any president.”

In the resurfaced video, Mr Meadows is seen speaking to a crowd while campaigning for his congressional seat. He told his supporters he wanted to “take back our country.”

“What we’re going to do is take back our country; 2012 is the time that we’re going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is,” Mr Meadows said in the video.

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President Donald Trump was one of the most vocal and prominent proponents of the “birther movement,” which falsely accused Mr Obama, a natural born citizen from Hawaii, is not an an American citizen.

The video was widely-circulated on social media after Mr Meadows’ heated exchange with Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib during Cohen’s bombshell congressional testimony.

In the hearing, Mr Meadows argued the president is not a racist since he has an African-American woman, Lynne Patton, a high-ranking official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, supporting and working in his administration.

Ms Tlaib said the GOP lawmaker’s use of Ms Patton, a woman of colour, as proof— or prop—that the president is not racist “is alone racist in itself.”

“Just because someone has a person of colour, a black person working for them does not mean that they aren’t racist,” Ms Tlaib said at the hearing. “And it is insensitive [...] the fact that someone would actually use a prop, a black woman in this chamber, in this committee, is alone racist in itself.”

The Michigan Democrat’s comments struck a nerve with Mr Meadows, who had asked her statement be stricken from the record.

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“To indicate that I asked someone who is a personal friend of the Trump family, who has worked for him, who has worked for this particulate individual … that’s she’s coming in to be a prop, it’s racist to suggest that I asked her to come in for that reason,” Mr Meadows said.