North Carolina newspaper calls Meadows an embarrassment to state

A leading North Caroline newspaper is blasting former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, calling the Republican who previously served in Congress an embarrassment to the state.

"When will the N.C. Republican Party censure Mark Meadows?" The News and Observer asked in an editorial published on Wednesday.

"The answer, of course, is never. But that won't hide the embarrassment that Meadows is for his party or for the state he represented in Congress for seven years."

Meadows has emerged "as a disgrace during a dangerous hour for U.S. democracy," the newspaper asserted.

"For North Carolina, Meadows is more than a figure in a Washington drama," the outlet's editorial board continued. "He is the embodiment of how the state's turn to extreme gerrymandering has opened the way for reactionary and incompetent candidates to represent the state in Congress."

The House on Tuesday voted to hold the former Trump White House chief of staff in contempt of Congress as the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol continues its probe of the incident.

Meadows will now be referred to the Justice Department on criminal contempt charges after refusing to testify before the committee.

The News and Observer, which has gone after Meadows before, slammed him in the latest editorial for the failure to cooperate with the probe and what it described as kowtowing to former President Trump.

"It has long been clear that Meadows is a Trump sycophant," the newspaper wrote. "Now the question is whether his eagerness to please included breaking the law. The Jan. 6 committee needs to take a hard line with the former chief of staff who never drew a line for Trump."