Panel votes for charges against Trump chief
Moves to have him held in contempt
The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection voted Monday to recommend contempt charges against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as lawmakers demand his testimony about thenpresident Donald Trump’s actions before and during the attack.
“Whatever legacy he thought he left in the House, this is his legacy now,” committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-miss., said of Meadows — a former Republican congressman from North Carolina. “His former colleagues singling him out for criminal prosecution because he wouldn’t answer questions about what he knows about a brutal attack on our democracy. That’s his legacy.”
The committee voted 9-0 to move forward with criminal charges against
Meadows, who declined to appear for a deposition last week. Lawmakers planned to ask about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in the weeks before the insurrection, including Meadows’ outreach to states and his communications with members of Congress.
Trump’s former top White House aide “is uniquely situated to provide key information, having straddled an official role in the White House and unofficial role related to Mr. Trump’s reelection campaign,” the panel said in a report released Sunday.
The report detailed the questions lawmakers have about emails and texts Meadows had provided to the committee before he ended his cooperation — including 6,600 pages of records taken from personal email accounts and about 2,000 text messages.
The panel has not released all the documents, but the report says they include Meadows efforts’ to help Trump overturn his defeat in the presidential election, communications with Congress and organizers of a rally held the morning of the insurrection and frantic messages among aides and others as the violent attack unfolded that day.