The congressional committee investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol recommended Monday that Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about his role in trying to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election.
The committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republican Trump critics, voted unanimously to recommend that Meadows face criminal charges. The full House must now vote on the measure. If it passes, the Justice Department would then decide whether to prosecute Meadows.
Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Select Committee and a Democrat from Mississippi, said in his opening remarks, “Whatever legacy [Meadows] thought he left in the House, this is his legacy now.” Meadows is a former Republican representative from North Carolina.
Meadows handed over 6,600 pages of records taken from personal email accounts and about 2,000 text messages to the nine-member House of Representatives committee investigating the violence by hundreds of Trump supporters at the Capitol 11 months ago. The trouble happened as lawmakers were certifying that Democrat Joe Biden had defeated Trump in his reelection bid.
Meadows initially agreed to testify about his role before January 6 in trying to help Trump claim a second four-year term in the White House and his actions that day. Protesters, urged by Trump to “fight like hell” to keep him in office, stormed the Capitol, smashed windows and scuffled with police. Last week, Meadows changed his mind about testifying, citing Trump’s assertion of executive privilege to keep documents secret to inhibit the investigation.
The House committee has already held another former Trump aide, Steve Bannon, in contempt of Congress for his refusal to comply with a subpoena to testify. Bannon was later indicted and, if convicted, could face up to a year in prison.
The investigative panel late Sunday issued a 51-page report that showed Meadows was deeply involved in trying to keep Trump in office even though the former president had lost five dozen court challenges in various states contesting his election loss and numerous vote recounts in individual political battleground states all upheld Biden’s victories.
State election officials often said there was no appreciable voter fraud, as Trump has alleged to this day, that would have changed the outcome in his favor.
If Meadows had appeared for a deposition, the committee said it would have questioned him about numerous documents he provided.
On Monday, Meadows said through his attorney that the committee's referral was unwise, unfair and contrary to law, according to The Associated Press.
In a November 7, 2020, email, the committee said that just days after Trump lost the election, Meadows discussed an effort to have state legislators in states Trump lost appoint electors supporting Trump rather than the pro-Biden electors a majority of voters had chosen.
In text messages with an unidentified senator, Meadows discussed Trump’s erroneous view that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to overturn the Electoral College vote count as lawmakers officially certified the state-by-state tally on January 6. Pence drew Trump’s ire as he refused to upend the Electoral College vote, which Biden won by a 306-232 margin, the same count Trump won by in 2016.
A day before the riot occurred, Meadows said National Guard troops would be at the Capitol to “protect pro-Trump people.” Other emails touched on the rioting at the Capitol as it unfolded, with pro-Trump supporters shutting down the Electoral College vote count for hours before Biden was finally declared the winner in the early hours of January 7.
The committee also said it wants to ask Meadows about claims he made in his new book, “The Chief’s Chief,” about his time in the White House with Trump.
“Mr. Meadows has shown his willingness to talk about issues related to the Select Committee’s investigation across a variety of media platforms — anywhere, it seems, except to the Select Committee,” the panel wrote.
In turn, Meadows has sued the committee, asking a court to invalidate two subpoenas that he says are "overly broad and unduly burdensome."
The panel has interviewed nearly 300 witnesses and lawmakers linked in some way to the rioting or contesting of the election results. The committee says it is planning a series of hearings early next year to make public many of its findings.
Some of the more than 600 people charged in the rioting, often identified by boasts on social media accounts of being inside the Capitol, have been sentenced to prison terms of a few months or, in more serious cases, to more than four years. But most of the criminal charges have yet to be adjudicated.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
