Capitol riot probe: US House finds ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress
- Justice Department to decide if prosecutors take up the House referral
- Mark Meadows has refused to testify in the Capitol insurrection probe
Former US president Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, could face criminal prosecution for refusing to cooperate fully with a probe into the deadly attack on the US Capitol, after the House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to hold him in contempt of Congress.
The Democratic-led chamber voted 222 to 208, with just two Republicans joining Democrats to recommend the charges against Meadows, who served in the House before joining the Republican president’s administration last year.
The rebuke moves the ultraconservative ex-congressman a step closer to becoming the first White House chief of staff to be prosecuted after leaving the post since H.R. Haldeman in the Watergate scandal nearly 50 years ago.
The Department of Justice will now decide whether to pursue charges. A conviction on the charge carries up to a year in prison.
The two Republicans on the January 6 committee, Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, were the only two Republicans who backed the resolution recommending the charges.
The charges against Meadows relate mainly to his refusal to honour a subpoena seeking his testimony about messages and other communications that he has turned over to the panel.
Cheney, the panel’s vice chairwoman, read out panicked text messages from unidentified lawmakers and others pleading with Meadows on January 6 to urge Trump to appear publicly and call off his followers. The texts surfaced during the Select Committee’s investigation.
“He’s got to condemn this s*** ASAP. We need an Oval Office address,” Trump’s son Donald Jnr said in one text. In others, conservative media hosts made similar private pleas to Meadows – before playing down the violence of the attack on the air.
“The American people deserve to know all of the steps that Donald Trump and those around him and that his campaign were taking in an effort to change the results of the election,” Cheney said.
Meadows’ lawyer, George Terwilliger, said in a statement on Tuesday that his client had not stopped cooperating.
“He has maintained consistently that as a former chief of staff he cannot be compelled to appear for questioning and that he as a witness is not licensed to waive executive privilege claimed by the former president,” Terwilliger said.
A federal appeal court last week rejected Trump’s request to withhold documents because of executive privilege, noting that Biden, as president, has already authorised their release.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
