On Tuesday evening, the House of Representatives voted mostly along party lines to hold former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to appear in the House committee exploring the protests at the Capitol on January 6, which Democrats insist on calling an “insurrection.”
The vote was also a trigger for the Justice Department to explore charging Meadows with criminal contempt. Meadows could face up to a year in jail for each contempt charge, plus substantial fines.
The “bipartisan” Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol includes seven Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans — Liz Cheney (Wy.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.)
The vote came just a day after the committee shared text messages that appear to show allies of President Trump, including Donald Trump Jr., imploring Meadows to get the president to end the protests.
It should be noted that Trump did end up advising the protestors to stop what they were doing and to home. In a video message, he said, “We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us — from me, from you, from our country,”
The former president went on to say, “You have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order and respect our great people in law enforcement.”
But that wasn’t enough for the partisan committee.
“How we address Jan. 6 is the moral test of our generation,” Cheney said in a floor debate. “It is very sad to see how my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are addressing this issue. Mr. Meadows has refused to testify about non-privileged material, he is in contempt.”
Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the committee, claimed it was a “difficult matter” to move forward with charges, but also said that as a former congressman, Meadows understands what it means to defy a subpoena.
“There was a steady stream of communication between certain members of Congress and Mr. Meadows about matters central to our investigation,” Thompson said on the House floor prior to the vote. “We have questions about those communications. We will pursue those questions and we won’t let the facts be buried by a coverup.”
Meadows initially cooperated with the committee’s “investigation,” handing over thousands of documents, including the text messages that are now under scrutiny. But he has balked at testifying before what Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) called a “kangaroo court,” claiming executive privilege.
“It comes down to this: Mr. Meadows started by doing the right thing — cooperating. He handed over records that he didn’t try to shield behind some excuse. But in an investigation like ours, that’s just a first step,” Thompson said. “When the records raise questions — as these most certainly do — you have to come in and answer those questions. And when it’s time for him to follow the law, come in, and testify on those questions, he changed his mind and told us to pound sand. He didn’t even show up.”
Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, disagrees that the former chief of staff “stopped cooperating.”
“Mr. Meadows never ‘stopped cooperating’ as is widely reported,” Terwilliger said in a statement. “Rather, he has maintained consistently that as a former Chief of Staff he cannot be compelled to appear for questioning and that he, as a witness, is not licensed to waive Executive Privilege claimed by the former president.”
“He has fully cooperated as to documents in his possession that are not privileged and has sought various means to provide other information while continuing to honor the former president’s privilege claims,” Terwilliger said.
According to Terwilliger, the partisan committee used his personal messages as part of a much larger effort to pursue the contempt charges. “What message does that duplicity send to him as well as to others who might be inclined to consider cooperating in good faith to the extent possible?” Terwilliger asked.
Meadows has sued the committee in an effort to block the enforcement of the subpoenas it has issued.
President Biden, who has waived executive privilege in the case of records associated with January 6, commented on the vote as he left the White House to tour storm damage in Kentucky. “It seems to me it’s worthy of being held in contempt.” the president said.
The show trial of Mark Meadows shows the depths to which Democrats are willing to sink in order to gain retribution for the Trump years. They were shown to be inept fools by Trump on multiple occasions, and this is nothing but payback.
The settling of political scores is not what Congress is for, according to Representative Taylor Greene.
“When we go to this level, to the point where we’re forgetting and abusing what our power is, then the American people will trust us no more,” Taylor Greene said on the House floor in advance of the vote.
