Ex-Trump aide Meadows working with House Jan. 6 panels

[ad_1]

WASHINGTON-Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, is working with a House panel investigating the Jan. 6 uprising in the Capitol, which has now stopped the panel’s threat to contempt him, the chairman of the committee on Tuesday.

The panel will “continue to assess its level of compliance,” the Mississippi Rep. Said. Bennie Thompson in a statement. He said Meadows has made records and will soon appear for an initial deposition.

The agreement came after two months of negotiations between Meadows and the committee and after the Justice Department accused Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon of objecting to a subpoena. Meadows’ attorney had previously indicated that his client would not comply, a stance the committee said was unacceptable.

“The Select Committee expects all witnesses, including Mr. Meadows, to provide all of the information requested and the Select Committee is legally eligible to receive it,” Thompson said.

Under the interim agreement, Meadows is likely to refuse to answer panel questions about his most sensitive conversation with Trump and what Trump was doing on Jan. 6 when hundreds of rioters violently entered the Capitol and were delayed. the certification of election victory in 2020 by Joe Biden.

Trump – who told his supporters to “fight like hell” that morning – tried to thwart much of the committee’s work, including in an ongoing court case, by arguing that Congress can’t get of information about his private conversation with the White House.

Meadows attorney George Terwilliger said in a statement that “we appreciate the Select Committee’s openness in receiving voluntary responses on non-privileged topics.”

Terwilliger said he continues to work with the committee and its staff on a potential accommodation that would not require Meadows to relinquish the executive privileges Trump claims or “forfeit the long-standing position of not being forced to testify in front of Congress are senior White House aides. “

The Meadows deal features how the committee is trying to balance its need for information about Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurgency against the desire to complete the investigation quickly. Although the committee rejected Trump’s legal arguments and Biden waived the executive privilege to provide documents and records, the panel wanted to avoid lengthy legal entanglements that could delay their work.

However, Meadows ’intention to work with the panel was a success for the seven Democrats and two Republicans on the committee, especially as they sought interviews with lower -profile witnesses who might have valuable information to share. So far, the panel has subpoenaed more than 40 witnesses and interviewed more than 150 people behind closed doors.

Terwilliger had previously said Meadows would not comply with the panel’s subpoena in September because of Trump’s privileged claims. But the House panel insisted it had questions for Meadows that did not directly involve talks with Trump.

In the committee’s subpoena in September, Thompson cited Meadows ’efforts to reverse Trump’s defeat in the weeks before the insurrection and his pressure on state officials to push false statements of widespread voter fraud.

“You are the president’s chief of staff and have critical information about many elements of our inquiry,” Thompson wrote. “It looks like you were with or around President Trump on Jan. 6, there was communication with the president and others on Jan. 6 about the events at the Capitol and you witnessed about the activities that day.”

Lawmakers on the committee indicated within weeks that they were willing to contempt Meadows, as they did with Bannon. But Thompson said before Thanksgiving that the committee would “not rush the effort” to clarify that they gave Meadows, a former Republican congressman from North Carolina, every chance to cooperate.

On Wednesday, the committee will vote on whether to pursue contempt cases against a separate witness, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, after he appeared for a deposition earlier this month but refused to answer questions. . The House may vote to contempt him as soon as possible this week. It is up to the Department of Justice to decide whether to charge him.

A report from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee detailed how Clark defended Trump’s efforts to undo the election results and clashed as a result with Justice Department superiors fighting the pressure, which concluded at a dramatic White House meeting where Trump thought about raising Clark as a lawyer. generally. He did not do so after some assistants threatened to resign.

[ad_2]