WASHINGTON (AP) — The Home committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol rebel has “no alternative” however to maneuver ahead with contempt expenses in opposition to former Trump White Home chief of workers Mark Meadows now that he’s not complying with a subpoena, the panel’s chairman mentioned Wednesday.
In a letter to Meadows’ legal professional, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., mentioned that Meadows has already offered paperwork to the committee, together with private emails and texts about former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. But Meadows didn’t present up Wednesday for a scheduled deposition after his lawyer, George Terwilliger, advised the panel that he was ending his cooperation.
Thompson famous within the letter that Meadows has additionally revealed a e-book, launched this week, that discusses the Jan. 6 assault.
“That he would promote his telling of the information of that day whereas denying a congressional committee the chance to ask him in regards to the assault on our Capitol marks an historic and aggressive defiance of Congress,” Thompson mentioned in a letter to Terwilliger.
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The Home has already voted to carry longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt after he defied a subpoena, and the Justice Division indicted Bannon on two counts.
The paperwork that Meadows has already offered to the panel, Thompson wrote, embody communications from across the time of the presidential election and earlier than the rebel and contain White Home efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory. One electronic mail outlines what Thompson characterised as a “direct and collateral assault” that will have concerned appointing an alternate slate of electors.
In accordance with the letter, Meadows offered the committee in November with private emails and backed up information from his private cellphone, together with textual content messages. These hundreds of paperwork included an electronic mail dated Nov. 7 — the day Biden was declared the winner — that Thompson described as “discussing the appointment of alternate slates of electors as a part of a ‘direct and collateral assault’ after the election.” He didn’t say who despatched the e-mail or give additional particulars.
The paperwork additionally included an electronic mail concerning a 38-page PowerPoint briefing titled “Election Fraud, International Interference & Choices for six JAN,” Thompson wrote, that was supposed to be shared on Capitol Hill. Thompson didn’t give another particulars in regards to the electronic mail however mentioned it was dated Jan. 5, the day earlier than tons of of Trump’s supporters violently breached the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory.
A separate Nov. 6 textual content change between Meadows and an unidentified member of Congress, Thompson wrote, was “apparently about appointing alternate electors in sure states as a part of a plan that the member acknowledged can be ‘extremely controversial,’ and to which Mr. Meadows apparently mentioned, ‘I like it.’”
Additionally included within the paperwork, in response to Thompson: A Jan. 5 electronic mail about having the Nationwide Guard on standby the subsequent day, an “early 2021 textual content message change” between Meadows and an organizer of the rally held the morning of Jan. 6, when Trump advised his supporters to “combat like hell,” and “textual content messages in regards to the want for the previous president to difficulty a public assertion that might have stopped the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.”
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Terwilliger didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the letter.
Meadows’ determination to cease complying with the committee got here after he had initially agreed to the deposition and after Terwilliger mentioned the committee was open to permitting him to say no some questions primarily based on the manager privilege claims that Trump has made in an ongoing courtroom case.
Terwilliger wrote the committee this week, nonetheless, {that a} deposition had turn out to be “untenable” as a result of the Jan. 6 panel “has no intention of respecting boundaries” round questions that Trump claims are off-limits. Terwilliger additionally mentioned he discovered over the weekend that the committee had issued a subpoena to a third-party communications supplier that he mentioned would come with “intensely private” details about Meadows.
“On account of cautious and deliberate consideration of those elements, we now should decline the chance to seem voluntarily for a deposition,” Terwilliger wrote within the letter.
In his response, Thompson confirmed the subpoenas to a 3rd occasion however mentioned they need to not have an effect on Meadows’ testimony.
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Related Press writers Eric Tucker and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
