Attorney says Meadows won’t cooperate

In an abrupt reversal, an attorney for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said his client will not cooperate with a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, citing a breakdown in negotiations with the panel.

Attorney George Terwilliger said in a letter Tuesday that a deposition would be “untenable” because the Jan. 6 panel “has no intention of respecting boundaries” concerning questions that former President Donald Trump has claimed are off-limits because of executive privilege. Terwilliger also said that he learned over the weekend that the committee had issued a subpoena to a third-party communications provider that he said would include “intensely personal” information.

Terwilliger said in a statement last week that he was continuing to work with the committee and its staff on a potential accommodation that would not require Meadows to waive the executive privileges claimed by Trump or “forfeit the longstanding position that senior White House aides cannot be compelled to testify” before Congress.

“We appreciate the Select Committee’s openness to receiving voluntary responses on non-privileged topics,” he said then.

A spokesperson for the panel did not have immediate comment on Terwilliger’s letter. The committee’s chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said last week that Meadows had been engaging with the panel through his attorney, producing records and agreeing to appear for an initial deposition.