Jan. 6 Committee Recommends Mark Meadows Be Held in Contempt For Defying Subpoena

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The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 issued a resolution recommending that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows be held in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena.

Meadows had previously been cooperating with the committee, but reversed course in December. Meadows’ attorney said the change came due to him and the committee being unable to reach an agreement regarding cell phone records and certain matters Meadows believe fall under executive privilege.

However, in the contempt report, the committee made clear that “Meadows’s failure to comply, and this contempt
recommendation, are not based on good-faith disagreements over privilege assertions.

“Rather, Mr. Meadows has failed to comply and warrants contempt findings because he has wholly refused to appear to provide any testimony and refused to answer questions regarding even clearly non-privileged information—information that he himself has identified as non-privileged through his own document production,” the report added.

The report noted that Meadow’s previously produced documents that he did not believe were protected by executive privilege and refused to “answer questions about the documents that he agrees are relevant and non-privileged that he had just produced.”

The committee has sought testimony from Meadows regarding several topics, including text messages he sent an organizer of the Jan. 6 rally after the organizer asked for assistance because “[t]hings have gotten crazy;” an email about Jan. 6 he sent saying the National Guard would “protect pro Trump people;” and exchanges with Republican legislators in which he proposed sending alternate slates of electors to Congress.

While the committee did not rule out possible claims of executive privilege, the report concluded “that there is no conceivable immunity or executive privilege claim that could bar all of the Select Committee’s requests or justify Mr. Meadows’s blanket refusal to appear for the required deposition.”

If the House votes to hold Meadows in contempt, he could find himself facing criminal charges — much like former Trump aide Steve Bannon, who similarly defied a subpoena from the committee.