Hours after the House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol signaled that it would pursue contempt of Congress charges against Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff filed a lawsuit to block the subpoenas they served to him and his cell phone company.
It’s the latest legal wrangling in a topsy turvy relationship.
Earlier this month, Meadows and the committee reached a cooperation agreement and he handed over thousands of pages of documents to investigators. But Meadows abruptly reversed course on Tuesday and told the committee he would not appear for a scheduled deposition. Once the committee responded by moving to bring the contempt charges, Meadows filed the lawsuit, listing the committee, its individual members, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi as defendants.
The lawsuit contends, among other things, that the committee serves no legislative purpose and lacks proper authority because it rejected two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’ GOP appointees. It also asks the U.S. District Court in Washington to resolve what Meadows calls the “untenable position” of having to choice between honoring the committee’s subpoena or Donald Trump’s claim to executive privilege. That claim was rejected by a federal judge last month, but an appeals court is reviewing the matter.
“Sounds like he’s trying to delay,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (IL), one of two Republicans working on the probe.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), and its vice-chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), issued a statement Wednesday night echoing that sentiment, pledging that Meadows’ “flawed lawsuit won’t succeed at slowing down the select committee’s investigation or stopping us from getting the information we’re seeking.”
Thompson added that he has “every intention to move forward with the contempt citation.”
The New York Times reports:
Mr. Thompson said Mr. Meadows had provided some useful information to the committee, including a November email that discussed appointing an alternate slate of electors to keep Mr. Trump in power and a Jan. 5 message about putting the National Guard on standby.
Mr. Meadows also turned over to the committee his text messages with a member of Congress in which the lawmaker acknowledged that a plan to object to Mr. Biden’s victory would be “highly controversial,” to which Mr. Meadows responded, “I love it.” And he furnished text exchanges about the need for Mr. Trump to issue a public statement on Jan. 6 aimed at persuading the mob marauding through the Capitol in his name to stand down.
Meadows told the committee that he no longer had the cell phone they asked him to turn over. The committee subpoenaed Verizon for the metadata associated with that account. Meadows’ lawsuit seeks to invalidate that subpoena, calling it irrelevant.
Meadows withdrew his cooperation with investigators after they refused to deem certain topics of conversation off-limits, including Trump’s efforts to pressure election officials in Georgia and Meadows’ communication with Department of Justice officials as Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election.
The committee has already recommended contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer, and Steve Bannon, a Trump confidante. The Department of Justice indicted Bannon last month.
