Mark Meadows Sues to Invalidate Subpoenas From House Panel Investigating Jan. 6 Capitol Riot
Committee had indicated it would move to hold the onetime Trump chief of staff in criminal contempt of Congress
WASHINGTON— Mark Meadows, the final chief of staff under President Donald Trump, sued House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, after the panel indicated it would move to hold him in criminal contempt of Congress.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington, asks a judge to invalidate subpoenas the committee issued to Mr. Meadows and to Verizon Wireless seeking his phone records, saying the panel lacked the legal authority to issue the “overly broad and unduly burdensome” demands. The 43-page complaint also notes that Mr. Trump had told his former chief of staff not to comply with the subpoenas, citing executive privilege. But President Biden waived those privilege claims, prompting Mr. Trump to file his own lawsuit. That left Mr. Meadows “in the untenable position of choosing between conflicting privilege claims that are of constitutional origin and dimension,” the Meadows suit said. “Thus, Mr. Meadows turns to the courts to say what the law is,” the lawsuit says.
Mr. Meadows has tangled with the committee since the end of September, when he was subpoenaed to turn over documents and testify in the panel’s probe of the causes and circumstances of the attack. The biggest sticking point has been over Mr. Meadows’s assertion of executive privilege, the idea that certain communications within the executive branch are constitutionally shielded from compelled disclosure. The committee, which consists of seven Democrats and two Republicans, had argued that executive privilege must be asserted on an issue-by-issue basis and that Mr. Meadows’s claims were overly broad. Mr. Meadows, who had earlier turned over thousands of pages of documents in an initial bid to stave off contempt proceedings, pulled out of a deposition scheduled for Wednesday morning after saying that the panel hadn’t respected the boundaries of his executive-privilege claims.
Mr. Meadows’s lawyer, George Terwilliger, also complained in a letter that the committee had subpoenaed cellphone records “without even the basic courtesy of notice to us.” When Mr. Meadows indicated that he would stop cooperating with the panel, Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) informed Mr. Meadows’s attorney that the Jan. 6 committee would move ahead with contempt charges. After the filing of the lawsuit, the panel’s leaders said it would meet next week to vote on recommending that Mr. Meadows be held in criminal contempt of Congress. “Mr. Meadows’s flawed lawsuit won’t succeed at slowing down the Select Committee’s investigation or stopping us from getting the information we’re seeking,” Mr. Thompson and the vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.), said in a statement.
If the committee votes to recommend holding Mr. Meadows in criminal contempt and the full Democratic-controlled House affirms the contempt resolution, the chamber could refer the matter to the Justice Department for potential criminal proceedings. Contempt of Congress is a crime that is punishable by a possible fine and up to one year in prison.
So far, the committee has voted to recommend holding in contempt of Congress Stephen Bannon, a former Trump adviser, and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who had allegedly coordinated with the Trump White House on challenging the presidential election results. Mr. Bannon has been charged criminally and his trial is set for July 18. Mr. Clark hasn’t faced a House vote. A recently scheduled deposition was postponed after he provided evidence to the committee of health issues. Mr. Meadows is a former House Republican lawmaker who once led the conservative House Freedom Caucus. He was a leader in some of the biggest political fights of the past decade, driving then-House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) from office, battling to overturn the Affordable Care Act and putting the brakes on some immigration-policy efforts. As an adviser to Mr. Trump, Mr. Meadows participated in a phone call in which Mr. Trump sought to persuade Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn President Biden’s win there.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-panel-probing-capitol-riot-to-hold-mark-meadows-in-criminal-contempt-11638982497--(Be aware that this is a paywall)
