January 6 Committee Threatens Mark Meadows With Criminal Contempt Referral If He Doesn’t Comply With Subpoena

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The January 6 select committee is warning Mark Meadows they will pursue criminal contempt charges if he does not comply with their subpoena.

The Trump White House Chief of Staff was subpoenaed in late September and has not cooperated. On Thursday morning Meadows made it clear he’s not planning on cooperating at all.

His lawyer decried President Joe Biden for declining to assert executive privilege and said, “Mr. Meadows remains under the instructions of former President Trump to respect longstanding principles of executive privilege. It now appears the courts will have to resolve this conflict.”

The committee isn’t planning on waiting long, if a new letter Thursday night from Chairman Bennie Thompson (D- MS) is any indication.

Thompson wrote to Meadows’ lawyer that they are relying on “a misunderstanding of his legal obligations under the subpoena.”

“The law requires that Mr. Meadows comply with the subpoena absent an applicable immunity or valid assertion of a Constitutionally based privilege,” the letter said. “The attached letter from the White House Counsel’s Office, dated today, eviscerates any plausible claim of testimonial immunity or executive privilege, and compels compliance with the Select Committee’s subpoena.”

Thompson concluded that Meadows has “no valid legal basis” for not cooperating and warned they would pursue criminal contempt charges if he does not show up for a deposition Friday:

The Select Committee will view Mr. Meadows’s failure to appear at the deposition, and to produce responsive documents or a privilege log indicating the specific basis for withholding any documents you believe are protected by privilege, as willful non-compliance. Such willful non- compliance with the subpoena would force the Select Committee to consider invoking the contempt of Congress procedures… which could result in a referral from the House of Representatives to the Department of Justice for criminal charges—as well as the possibility of having a civil action to enforce the subpoena brought against Mr. Meadows in his personal capacity.

The House has already voted to hold Steve Bannon in criminal contempt, and now the decision lays at the feet of the Justice Department.