House votes for Meadows to face criminal charges for defying Jan. 6 probe

The House of Representatives voted 222 to 208 on Tuesday night to hold former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt of court for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The Justice Department will now consider whether to bring criminal charges against Meadows, which would make him the second Trump ally, after Steve Bannon, to face prosecution for failing to cooperate with the probe.

Just two Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the criminal referral, Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, both of whom are on the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot.

Meadows, who was White House chief of staff during former President Donald Trump’s last year in office, is believed by House investigators to have been involved in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including plans to delay the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory on Jan. 6. The select committee subpoenaed Meadows in September for information related to those efforts, as well as Trump’s activities on Jan. 6, as hundreds of Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol building, injuring more than 140 police officers and forcing lawmakers and staffers to hide in barricaded offices.

After failing to meet the panel’s initial October deadline to produce requested documents and testimony, Meadows temporarily dodged a referral for contempt charges by agreeing to cooperate with the House probe late last month, turning over thousands of pages of documents. But the deal quickly soured; one day before he was scheduled to sit for an initial deposition last week, Meadows’s attorney notified the committee that he was no longer planning to appear, citing the panel’s apparent intent to question Meadows about subjects that he believes are covered by Trump’s invocation of executive privilege.

The committee has pushed back on this argument, saying that Meadows has refused to testify about emails and text messages he already gave the committee as part of his previous cooperation agreement. President Biden, as the current office holder, has so far waived executive privilege for documents relevant to the select committee’s investigation.The panel has also pointed out that Meadows’s new book, which went on sale last week, contains details about the events of Jan. 6, including his conversations with Trump.

Before the panel voted to refer Meadows for contempt Monday night, Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., revealed the content of some of the non-privileged messages produced by Meadows that are of particular interest to Jan. 6 investigators, including texts from multiple Fox News hosts as well as Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. as rioters stormed the Capitol, urging the president to take action to stop the attack.

“Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” Cheney read aloud a text message from Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Cheney also described multiple texts Meadows received from Donald Trump Jr. similarly urging the president to take action. “He’s got to condemn this s*** ASAP,” Trump Jr. wrote to Meadows, who replied: “I’m pushing it hard. I agree.”

“These text messages leave no doubt the White House knew exactly what was happening at the Capitol,” Cheney said Monday.

The Justice Department must now consider whether to pursue criminal charges against him. Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist was indicted by a federal grand jury on two criminal counts less than a month after the House of Representatives voted to hold him in contempt for failing to cooperate with his own subpoena from the select committee. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a combined penalty of up to two years in prison and $200,000 in fines.

The select committee also voted earlier this month to advance a criminal contempt referral for Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who reportedly helped Trump try to upend the election. However, the process of holding Clark in contempt of Congress was temporarily put on hold after his attorney notified the committee that Clark intended to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Thompson addressed all three recalcitrant witnesses in his opening remarks before the select committee vote on its contempt referral for Meadows Monday night.

“If you’re listening at home, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Clark, I want you to know this: History will be written about these times, about the work this committee has undertaken, and history will not look upon any of you as a martyr,” said Thompson. “History will not look upon you as a victim. History will not dwell on your long list of privilege claims or your legal sleight of hand. History will record that in a critical moment in our democracy, most people were on the side of finding the truth, of providing accountability, of strengthening our system for future generations.”

Last week, Meadows filed a lawsuit against the Jan. 6 select committee, arguing that the panel’s “overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoenas” violate his right to free speech as well as his former boss’s powers of executive privilege. Last week, a federal appeals court ruled against Trump’s effort to override Biden’s authority and block the Jan. 6 panel from accessing his White House records.