Trump Allies Meadows, Bannon, Stone Defy Congress on Jan. 6 Capitol Riot Probe

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Nearly a year after the riot in the Capitol on Jan. 6, close allies of former President Donald Trump are throwing stones at the congressional panel investigating the insurgency. Despite gathering evidence and sharing vivid glimpses into how key figures in the Republican world of politics and media responded as the attack unfolded, the House committee has so far been hampered in its efforts. get accounts from Trump’s inner circle about what the president knew and did. That day.

That insider’s testimony may not have come. A series of Trump partisans are trying to stop the investigation into a legal battle that is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

In November, Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief White House strategist, got an extraordinary criminal insult case in Congress for refusing to testify before the committee. Others have already followed his lead.

Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, first worked with committee investigators, who shared thousands of documents and communications from the day of the attack. At a hearing on Dec. 14, Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and vice chair of the committee, read a series of explosive text messages from Meadows’ phone. (Among them: “We need an Oval address. He needs to rule now. It’s too far away and out of hand,” Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. texted.)

But Meadows has come under intense criticism from Trump’s allies and has broken cooperation. His refusal to testify resulted in the House voting to take him on criminal contempt in Congress, which referred the matter to the U.S. Justice Department.

Republicans close to Trump say such outright opposition is the new standard of loyalty to the former president. “Bannon’s position of strength is an example to others,” said Boris Epshteyn, former White House special assistant to Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, agreed that the throwing of key witnesses was “designed to amuse one party of another.”

The list of Trump’s known allies refusing to cooperate has been growing longer than the week. On Dec. 17, Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant, appeared before the committee to assert his Fifth Amendment rights in response to questions. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek earlier, Stone denounced the committee as “a partisan witch hunt.” John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who advised Trump on ways to reverse the 2020 presidential election, has sued Verizon Communications Inc. and the Chamber committee to prevent investigators from obtaining his cellphone data.

Stone following his deposition before the House Select Committee on Dec. 17.

Photographer: Ken Cedeno/Reuters

People outside Trump’s immediate circle are also resisting committee summons. Republican Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said Dec. 21 that he would reject a request to appear before the panel. Faced with a subpoena, right -wing radio broadcaster Alex Jones sued the committee and said he intended to sue Fifth like Stone.

Bannon has been outspoken about his desire to sabotage the investigation, even as he faces the possibility of jail time, warning that his contempt case will boomerang on Democrats and be a “misdemeanor from hell” for Attorney General Merrick Garland. , House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and President Joe Biden. This was, at the very least, a proven headache for the committee because Bannon and others used the courts to delay their reckoning.

Bannon cited Trump’s claim of executive privilege as the reason why he did not testify. Meadows signaled that he would do the same. Trump’s own efforts to block the committee also trigger an investigation, though his legal argument for doing so is seen by experts as shaky at best.

In October, the former president sued to block the National Archives from providing his records to the White House in connection with Jan. 6, saying the documents and communications were protected by his executive privilege — even though he was no longer in office and Biden turned his back on it.

Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, said the limits of executive privilege are reflected in the U.S. Supreme Court decision that forced then-President Richard Nixon to provide audio recordings of his conversations. to the Oval Office in the Watergate investigation: The court said Nixon’s claim to privilege overrides the public’s right to information. Wehle hopes that precedent will be applied to Trump.

“When you talk about a bloody uprising that looks like a deliberate, planned effort to move the election to the loser and take it away from the Americans, Nixon is a good authority for handling that even if Meadows or Has executive privilege Trump, waived here, ”Wehle said.

Trump experienced a setback on Dec. 9, when the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled he provided “no basis” to override Biden’s assessment of the executive branch’s interests at stake.

“The events of January 6 exposed the weakness of those democratic institutions and traditions that we probably have provided for,” the unanimous three-judge panel said in the decision affirming the committee’s right to seek evidence.

But even unfavorable court decisions may not produce the testimony the committee seeks. Trump has promised to take his case to the Supreme Court. Lawyers close to the case, which is likely to end there, say the legal battle over executive privilege is already going on two identical paths — Trump’s and Bannon’s case — and possibly soon a third (Meadows’s). . That process will take months to play, and it can be overwhelming on the committee.

Many Trump allies are speculating that Republicans will win control of the House in November and close the investigation once they are in power, with the panel denying accounts from Bannon and other key figures it seeks. Experts see several options for removing this scenario.

“Judgments on these matters are too long, and there are too many layers of appeal, especially when you’re on a fast clock like a committee — it can take too long,” said former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers. . “This is a tactic that Trump and his allies have really taken advantage of throughout the Trump administration.”

For Republicans ’intent to destroy the investigation on Jan. 6, it was also one that could prove effective during the Biden administration. Read next: Imprisoned Russian Cyber ​​CEO Linked to 2016 Election Hack Leaks

BOTTOM LINE – The Jan. 6 battle moved from Congress to the courts to assess the limits of executive privilege. The process could go beyond the investigation if Republicans retake the House.

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