Mark Meadows to Take Questions From Jan. 6 Riot Panel
(Bloomberg) -- Former President Donald Trump's last chief of staff Mark Meadows has agreed to sit for closed-door questioning by a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 mob attack at the Capitol, the panel's chairman said.
Meadows, who is among those instructed by Trump lawyers to defy congressional subpoenas, has already turned over some records and engaged with the committee through his lawyer, forestalling any potential contempt of Congress action.
“He has produced records to the committee and will soon appear for an initial deposition. The Select Committee expects all witnesses, including Mr. Meadows, to provide all information requested and that the Select Committee is lawfully entitled to receive,” Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, the panel's chairman, said. “The committee will continue to assess his degree of compliance with our subpoena after the deposition.”
Meadows' lawyer, George Terwilliger, described his client's cooperation as related to “non-privileged topics” and said they are discussing with the committee how to proceed.
“As we have from the beginning, we continue to work with the Select Committee and its staff to see if we can reach an accommodation that does not require Mr. Meadows to waive executive privilege or to forfeit the long-standing position that senior White House aides cannot be compelled to testify before Congress,” Terwilliger said in a statement. “We appreciate the Select Committee's openness to receiving voluntary responses on non-privileged topics.”
Read More: Trump Capitol Riot Case Stirs Fight Over Limits of Privilege
Thompson and the committee's Republican vice chair, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, had warned Meadows, a former Republican congressman, publicly in early November that the committee would consider contempt action against him after he failed to show up for a scheduled deposition.
The news comes as the Jan. 6 panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans has set a Wednesday vote on whether to recommend the House hold former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark in contempt of Congress for his lack of cooperation under subpoena.
The committee on Tuesday evening released its contempt report against Clark, which is part of the recommendation the panel will consider sending to the full House.
Clark “proposed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) send a letter to officials of the State of Georgia and other states suggesting that they call special legislative sessions to investigate allegations of voter fraud and consider appointing new slates of electors,” the report says, citing documents and testimony gathered by the Select Committee. “Clark also met with White House officials, including then-President Trump, to discuss efforts to delegitimize, disrupt, or overturn the election.”
When Clark appeared for a deposition to the committee on Nov. 5, he refused to produce any documents or answer committee questions, according to the report, adding that his “refusal to comply with the Select Committee's subpoena represents willful default under the law and warrants referral to the United States attorney for the District of Columbia for prosecution under the contempt of Congress statute as prescribed by law.”
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday that a contempt vote by the full House referring the matter to the Justice Department for prosecution could occur later this week.
In October, the House took contempt action against Steve Bannon, who served as Trump's chief political strategist and helped run his 2016 campaign. With the committee's recommendation, Democrats who control the House voted to hold Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress for his defiance and referred the matter to the Justice Department for prosecution.
A federal grand jury indicted him on two counts of contempt of Congress this month.
Separately, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger met privately with the committee on Monday, a person familiar confirmed to Bloomberg News. Raffensperger told the Atlanta Journal Constitution in an interview that he spoke to the panel about a Jan. 2 call with Trump in which the former president encouraged him to “find” 11,780 more votes.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Unhedged Position | Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
-
Joining The Dots | Dark Skies, Steady Diya: Why Hope Holds This Diwali
With war, a weak rupee and foreign outflows weighing on sentiment, policymakers at the NDTV World Summit and market veterans at NDTV Profit Ignite: Diwali Edition offered the same advice: stay invested and filter out the noise.
-
The Curious Case of Equitas Small Finance Bank And A CEO Who Quit For Stock
PN Vasudevan believes persistent investor concerns over a perceived conflict of interest had become a governance overhang on Equitas Small Finance Bank's stock, even as the lender improved profitability and asset quality.
