House committee investigating Capitol insurrection moves to find Mark Meadows in contempt
Saying it had “no choice,” the House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection will move forward with contempt charges against former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after he failed to appear for a scheduled deposition, the panel’s chairman said Wednesday.
The House has already voted to hold longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt after he defied a subpoena, and the Justice Department indicted Bannon on two counts.
Meadows’ decision to stop complying with the committee came after he had initially agreed to the deposition and after his lawyer, George Terwilliger, said the committee was open to allowing him to decline some questions based on the executive privilege claims that former President Donald Trump has made in an ongoing court case.
In a letter to Meadows’ attorney, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said that Meadows has already provided thousands of documents to the committee, including personal emails and texts about Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
“There is no legitimate legal basis for Mr. Meadows to refuse to ... answer questions about the documents he provided, the personal devices and accounts he used (and) the events he described in his newly released book,” Thompson said in the letter to Terwilliger.
The voluntarily turned-over documents included an email dated Nov. 7 — the day Biden was declared the winner — that Thompson described as “discussing the appointment of alternate slates of electors as part of a ‘direct and collateral attack’ after the election.” He did not say who sent the email or give further details.
Also included in the documents, according to Thompson: A Jan. 5 email about having the National Guard on standby the next day, an “early 2021 text message exchange” between Meadows and an organizer of the rally held the morning of Jan. 6, when Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell,” and “text messages about the need for the former president to issue a public statement that could have stopped the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.”
Meadows turned over a 38-page PowerPoint presentation entitled “Options for JAN 6,” and a text message exchange with an organizer of the so-called Stop the Steal rally that Trump addressed.
Terwilliger wrote the committee this week after he learned that the committee had issued a subpoena to a third-party communications provider that he said would include “intensely personal” information about Meadows.
“As a result of careful and deliberate consideration of these factors, we now must decline the opportunity to appear voluntarily for a deposition,” Terwilliger wrote in the letter.
In his response, Thompson confirmed the subpoenas to a third party, but said they should not affect Meadows’ testimony.
With News Wire Services
