Washington Refuses to Appear Before Congress Ever Again
House Seeks Antipathy Charge Against Meadows in Jan. 6 Inquiry
The sometime White House main of staff previously provided the committee with thousands of pages of documents, including text messages he received on Jan. vi.
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House Votes to Recommend Contempt Charge Against Meadows
The House voted 222 to 208 to recommend Mark Meadows, erstwhile President Donald J. Trump's last chief of staff, be held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with its committee investigating the mortiferous January. 6 attack on the Capitol.
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"It'due south increasingly clear that for 187 minutes, the commander in primary was derelict of his duty. We know this considering Mr. Meadows provided the show to the committee without any assertations of privilege. And while the records he's handed over are helpful, there are many questions that we need to enquire him." "President Trump is hiding backside executive privilege. All of my colleagues, all of them, knew that what happened on January. 6 was an set on on our Constitution. They knew it at the time. Yet now they are defending the indefensible. Whether we tell the truth, get to the truth and defend ourselves against information technology ever happening again is the moral test of our time." "The yeas are 222 and the nays are 208. The resolution is adopted without objection. The motion to reconsider is laid on the table."
WASHINGTON — The House voted on Tuesday night to recommend holding Marker Meadows, who served as chief of staff to former President Donald J. Trump, in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with its investigation into the Jan. half dozen assail on the Capitol, escalating a legal battle against a potentially crucial witness in a widening research.
The vote of 222 to 208 sent the matter to the Justice Section to consider whether to prosecute Mr. Meadows, who would exist the starting time quondam fellow member of Congress to exist held in contempt of the body he once served in nearly 200 years, according to congressional aides.
2 Republicans — Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who serve on the commission investigating the attack over the objections of their party — joined Democrats in voting to find him in antipathy.
But while the activity indicated a stalemate between Mr. Meadows and Congress, his initial cooperation with the research — including around ix,000 pages of documents he turned over — has already given the committee its first substantial burst of momentum and political traction as it tries to plant a full accounting of the events that led to the deadly riot.
More revelations emerged on Tuesday before the vote, every bit Ms. Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the committee, read aloud text messages that Republicans in Congress sent to Mr. Meadows on Jan. 6 as violence engulfed the Capitol.
"Information technology's really bad upward here on the hill," one said.
"The President needs to terminate this asap," another implored.
"Ready this now," some other said.
The committee also divulged a November. 4 message from an unidentified Republican member of Congress to Mr. Meadows — before states were even finished counting ballots — proposing an "ambitious strategy" in which Republican-controlled legislatures in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and other states would "just transport their ain electors" instead of potential Biden electors chosen past voters.
"How did this text influence the planning of Marker Meadows and Donald Trump to effort to destroy the lawful Electoral College majority that had been established by the people of the United states and the states for Joe Biden?" said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee.
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Ms. Cheney's recitation of the messages from Republicans, during a coming together of the Rules Committee before the Business firm began debating the antipathy charge, was a stark reminder that there was a moment when prominent bourgeois figures, G.O.P. lawmakers and even Mr. Trump'due south son had been appalled by the violence at the Capitol and agreed it was the president who needed to cease it.
"As the violence was underway on the sixth, it was evident to all, but we know that for 187 minutes, President Trump refused to act," said Ms. Cheney, who was ousted from her Republican leadership post for speaking out against Mr. Trump'due south election lies. "And he refused to act when his action was required, it was essential, and information technology was compelled past his duty, compelled by his adjuration of part."
The revelations were also existence watched in the Senate, where Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said on Tuesday that while he was non among the lawmakers sending text letters to Mr. Meadows on Jan. 6, he was paying shut attention to what Business firm investigators might uncover.
"Nosotros're all watching, as you lot are, what's unfolding on the House side, and it will exist interesting to reveal all the participants that were involved," he told reporters outside the Senate bedchamber.
After initially expressing outrage at what unfolded on January. 6, Republicans in Congress have largely pivoted to denying or dismissing what happened and rallied once more around Mr. Trump, arguing he was not culpable. Firm leaders sent out a observe on Tuesday encouraging their members to fight the antipathy accuse confronting Mr. Meadows.
Representative Jim Hashemite kingdom of jordan, Republican of Ohio, said that the committee's investigation was a political "charade" focused solely on persecuting Mr. Trump and his allies.
"Marking Meadows is our former colleague. He is a good man. He is my friend," Mr. Jordan said during fence on the contempt referral. "This is as wrong as it gets. Yous all know it. Merely your lust for power, your lust to become your opponents, is so intense yous don't care."
The vote would exist the second fourth dimension in recent weeks the House voted to hold an ally of Mr. Trump in contempt of Congress for refusing to sit for deposition. Stephen Thousand. Bannon was indicted by a federal g jury last month subsequently the House voted to recommend that he exist constitute in contempt for refusing to cooperate with the commission.
Different Mr. Bannon, who was non a member of the government during the run-upwardly to Jan. 6, Mr. Meadows, who was one of Mr. Trump'due south closest White House advisers during the attack, may have a stronger example against cooperating with a congressional inquiry that seeks confidential communications with a president that could be protected by executive privilege.
Only Democrats argued that Mr. Meadows's decision to replenish thousands of documents that are non privileged only underscored his obligation to speak to investigators about what he knew. They chalked upwards his change in stance to pressure from the erstwhile president, who objected to portions of Mr. Meadows's newly released book.
"In an investigation similar ours, when you produce records, you are expected to come up in and reply questions about those records," said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee. "But that's non what he did. He told united states the day before his degradation — the aforementioned 24-hour interval his book was published — that he would no longer cooperate with our investigation, and that he wasn't coming in to be interviewed."
Mr. Meadows and his lawyer, George J. Terwilliger Iii, vigorously protested the charge on Tuesday before the Business firm action. Mr. Terwilliger said Mr. Meadows never "stopped cooperating" with the committee, arguing he has cooperated every bit much as he could without violating Mr. Trump's assertions of executive privilege. Mr. Meadows has filed suit against the console to seek a court ruling to make up one's mind the validity of Mr. Trump's assertions of executive privilege.
"He has fully cooperated equally to documents in his possession that are not privileged and has sought various means to provide other information while standing to laurels the old president's privilege claims," Mr. Terwilliger said, pointing out that his client had provided the panel with voluminous bear witness.
On Monday, the commission voted 9 to 0 to recommend that Mr. Meadows exist charged with criminal antipathy of Congress. Mr. Meadows said later in an interview with the Play a trick on News host Sean Hannity that the vote confronting him was "disappointing just non surprising." He argued that the committee was focusing solely on Mr. Trump at the expense of security lapses at the Capitol.
"I've tried to share nonprivileged information," he said. "Only truly the executive privilege that Donald Trump has claimed is his to waive. It's not mine to waive."
The documents Mr. Meadows has furnished have shown that he played a far more substantial role in plans to try to overturn the 2020 ballot than was previously known.
Among the documents Mr. Meadows provided the committee was a bulletin in which he indicated the National Guard would be bachelor to protect "pro-Trump people" on Jan. six. Mr. Meadows told Mr. Hannity the former president wanted thousands of troops ready.
But the guard was non deployed quickly on Jan. 6 as the violence unfolded, with its one-time commanding officer testifying that he had to wait for more than three hours for approval to transport in his troops.
In an endeavour to speed up guard deployment, the House approved a nib to empower the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police force to unilaterally asking the help of the Commune of Columbia National Guard or other federal law enforcement agencies in emergencies without prior approving of the Capitol Constabulary Lath. The measure had passed the Senate on Monday and at present heads to Mr. Biden's desk.
The debate over Mr. Meadows on the House flooring Tuesday nighttime was extraordinary and at times biting.
At one point, the proceedings basis to a halt later Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, demanded that Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat, be sanctioned for saying that Mr. Perry did not desire the subpoena of Mr. Meadows enforced because he feared the truth that would be exposed.
Mr. Perry, the new leader of the right-fly House Freedom Conclave, played a key role in the weeks earlier Jan. 6 in trying to help Mr. Trump invalidate the election results, introducing a little-known Justice Department lawyer to Mr. Trump every bit he pushed the agency to declare the 2020 election fraudulent.
His complaint confronting Mr. Hoyer was rejected. But the exchange reflected the hostile dynamic on Tuesday in the House, where lawmakers who came under attack by a mob inspired past Mr. Trump'due south lies of a stolen election were squaring off against Republicans who helped spread those very lies.
Aides said Tuesday's vote would be the first time the Business firm had voted to hold one of its old members in criminal contempt since Sam Houston, a old representative from Tennessee, was convicted of the accuse in the 1830s afterwards chirapsia a member of Congress with his wooden cane.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/14/us/politics/mark-meadows-contempt-capitol-riot.html
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