WASHINGTON — A House panel is set to recommend that former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows be held in criminal contempt of Congress, a action his lawyer said Monday “would simply be unjust.”
Meadows is refusing to testify before the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters, even though he has turned over thousands of emails and texts.
The committee’s contempt case against Meadows is outlined in a 51-page report and contempt resolution that includes new details of activities and comments by Trump, Meadows and others that the panel said are revealed in some of the thousands of emails and text messages that Meadows has already turned over, as well as other material.
“Mr. Meadows’s choice to decline a deposition is an attempt to comply with his legal obligations as a former adviser to the president,” George J. Terwilliger III wrote in a letter Monday to the committee’s chairman, Bennie Thompson.
He said that the committee should stop Monday’s vote to recommend a contempt citation because Meadows is making “a good-faith invocation of executive privilege and testimonial immunity.”
The committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans has laid out its contempt case against the former North Carolina representative in its report. If the committee proceeds with the referral Monday evening, the Democratic-controlled House is expected to vote Tuesday on the whether to hold Meadows in contempt.
Former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon is set to go on trial in July on criminal contempt charges over his refusal to cooperate with the investigation. In addition, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official and Trump adviser, faces potential House contempt action.
Although the committee didn’t release the emails and texts Meadows provided, it does point to some of the contents in laying out what they want to ask Meadows. That includes his direct knowledge of Trump actions and communications with members of Congress “before, during and after the attack on the United States Capitol.”
One item of interest is an email Meadows sent to an individual about the events on Jan. 6 that said the National Guard would be present to “protect pro-Trump people” and that many more “would be available on standby.” The National Guard response on Jan. 6 has been a major focus of congressional inquiries.
The committee report also states that Meadows received text messages and emails “regarding apparent efforts to encourage Republican legislators in certain States to send alternate slates of electors to Congress, a plan which one Member of Congress acknowledged was ‘highly controversial’ and to which Mr. Meadows responded, ‘I love it.’”
There also is information based on material the panel has about Meadows participating in a meeting that reportedly occurred on Dec. 18, 2020 on proposals for challenging the 2020 election results, along with Trump and White House and campaign staff.
“During the meeting, the participants reportedly discussed purported foreign interference in the election, seizing voting machines, invoking certain Federal laws like the National Emergencies Act, and appointing one of the attendees as a special counsel with a Top Secret security clearance to investigate fraud in the election,” the report says.
One text exchange in possession of the committee reflects a communication Meadows had with an unidentified senator, in which Meadows talked about the power he believed former Vice President Mike Pence had to reject presidential electors.
The report also refers to information in Meadows’ new book. “Mr. Meadows described in his book, ‘The Chief’s Chief,’ specific conversations that he had with Mr. Trump while he was the President about, among other things, fraud in the election and the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol,” states the report.
Those passages, it says, include information about a conversation Meadows had with Trump after the former president spoke to rally goers that day and, presumably, just after the attack on the Capitol had started.
The report argues that Meadows and his lawyer are taking a legally inconsistent stance on his testimony because he’s already turned over material to the investigation.
“Mr. Meadows produced documents but still chose to withhold testimony,” the committee says.
