The House subcommittee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will move forward on the criminal contempt charges against former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows if the Trump ally stops cooperating with the panel.
"Mark Meadows has informed the Select Committee that he does not intend to cooperate with our investigation despite his apparent willingness to provide details about the facts and circumstances surrounding the January 6th attack, including conversations with President Trump, in the book he is now promoting and selling," committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney said in a Tuesday statement.
"Tomorrow's deposition, which was scheduled at Mr. Meadow's request, will go forward as planned," the statement reads. "If indeed Mr. Meadows refuses to appear, the Select Committee will be left no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Mr. Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution."
The latest development comes in response to Meadows' sudden reversal on cooperating with the House panel.
After defying the initial subpoena issued back in September, Meadows recently agreed to hand over communications from his time at the White House to the committee and appear in front of the panel for a deposition—just staving off criminal contempt charges that the panel was considering referring Meadows for.
Despite seeming to have reached a deal with the January 6 committee last week, Meadows and his attorney backtracked on Tuesday and sent a letter to the panel, saying "We now must decline the opportunity to appear voluntarily for a deposition."
The abrupt turnaround means Meadows is once again siding with former President Donald Trump and his allies in refusing to produce documents pertinent to the committee's investigation.
Now that Meadows has changed his mind, it seems the committee is ready to continue on its previous path, just as it has for former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark.
Bannon is currently awaiting trial for his criminal contempt charges while Clark's criminal contempt charges hinge on whether he will attend his own deposition. Both men defied the committee's subpoenas, citing Trump's executive privilege claims.
Meadows' attorney, George Terwilliger, referenced the same assertions in his Tuesday letter, writing that "the Select Committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning Executive Privilege."
Whether or not Trump is allowed to invoke executive privilege remains in limbo as the claims continue to be litigated through the courts following President Joe Biden's decision to waive the assertions made by his predecessor.
"Even as we litigate privilege issues, the Select Committee has numerous questions for Mr. Meadows about records he has turned over to the Committee with no claim of privilege, which include real-time communications with many individuals as the events of January 6th unfolded," Thompson and Cheney said on Tuesday.
"We also need to hear from him about voluminous official records stored in his personal phone and email accounts, which were required to be turned over to the National Archives in accordance with the Presidential Records Act," they added.
Meadows' decision to no longer cooperate with the committee coincides with the release of his new memoir on Tuesday.
The former official is also expected to appear on Fox News' Hannity later in the evening.
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Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
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