Jan. 6 committee threatens to hold Mark Meadows in contempt

The Jan. 6 House committee threatened to hold former President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff in contempt of Congress for his refusal to comply with its subpoenas.

Chairman Bennie Thompson told Mark Meadows’s attorney, George Terwilliger, the former North Carolina congressman is not protected by executive privilege, which Trump invoked for documents connected to the investigation into the Jan. 6 riot. If he does not provide documents and appear for deposition by 10 a.m. on Friday, the committee will consider referring him to the Justice Department for criminal charges, Thompson told Terwilliger.

“The law requires that Mr. Meadows comply with the subpoena absent an applicable immunity or valid assertion of a constitutionally based privilege … 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 noncompliance,” Thompson said. “Such willful noncompliance 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.”

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Thompson argued that “categorical claims of executive privilege run afoul of case law requiring that any claim of executive privilege be asserted narrowly and specifically.”

“[Meadow’s] position is based on Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (“OLC”) opinions in which OLC has advised past presidents to claim that senior advisers cannot be required to provide testimony to Congress about official actions,” he continued. “These opinions, however, do not justify Mr. Meadows’s refusal to provide the Select Committee information about one of the most significant events in our Nation’s history.”

White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su told Terwilliger on Thursday that President Joe Biden is not asserting executive privilege on anything related to the Jan. 6 investigation.

“The President believes that the constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield information reflecting an effort to subvert the Constitution itself, and indeed believes that such an assertion in this circumstance would be at odds with the principles that underlie the privilege,” Su reportedly wrote in his letter.

Terwilliger told the Washington Examiner he has a “sharp legal dispute” with the committee that needs to be resolved in court.

“It would be irresponsible for Mr. Meadows to prematurely resolve that dispute by voluntarily waiving privileges that are at the heart of those legal issues,” he said. “Decades of litigation over Executive Privilege  shows how critically important it is for a president to have access to advice and counsel without fear that political opponents in Congress will later be able to pull away the shield of confidentiality.”

Meadows was Trump’s chief of staff on Jan. 6, when rioters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Biden’s election. He was also backstage during Trump’s speech earlier that day at the “Stop the Steal” rally in front of the White House. Investigators appear interested in his knowledge of behind-the-scenes events of that day and any documentation or evidence he might have.

The former chief of staff was first subpoenaed by the committee in September, but Thompson said in his letter to Terwilliger that Meadows has not provided any of the requested documents to the committee since then.

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The committee has recently threatened to hold other former Trump officials in contempt for failure to comply with their requests. Congress voted to hold former Trump aide Steve Bannon in contempt on Oct. 21 for refusing to testify before the panel. Lawmakers have also threatened to hold Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, in contempt.

The Washington Examiner reached out to representatives from the committee for comment but has not heard back.