Mark Meadows contempt charge heads to vote in full House

Dec. 13 (UPI) -- The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol voted Monday to recommended a contempt charge for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for refusing to comply with a subpoena.

The committee released a resolution on Sunday detailing its recommendation for Meadows, who formerly said he'd cooperate with the investigative panel but changed course last week and refused, citing executive privilege. They voted formally to advance the recommendation, and the full House is expected to vote Tuesday.

If the full House approves a contempt charge, it will referred to the Justice Department, which would then bring it before a federal grand jury, CNN reported.

The committee said it has tried to obtain records and testimony from Meadows, former President Donald Trump's final White House chief of staff, and has warned him of the consequences of failing to comply.

"Mr. Meadows' failure to appear for deposition testimony in the face of this clear advisement and warning by the Chairman, and after being given a second chance to cooperate with the Select Committee, constitutes a willful failure to comply with the subpoena," the panel wrote in the resolution Sunday.

Meadows would follow former White House adviser Steve Bannon and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark in taking a contempt charge for refusing to cooperate with Jan. 6 investigators.

"Meadows' failure to comply, and this contempt recommendation, are not based on good-faith disagreements over [executive] privilege assertions," the panel wrote in its resolution.

"Rather, Mr. Meadows has failed to comply and warrants contempt findings because he has wholly refused to appear to provide any testimony and refused to answer questions regarding even clearly non-privileged information -- information that he himself has identified as non-privileged through his own document production."

Meadows was scheduled to give a deposition Wednesday, but did not appear.

"We agreed to provide thousands of pages of responsive documents, and Mr. Meadows was willing to appear voluntarily, not under compulsion of the select committee's subpoena to him, for a deposition to answer questions about non-privileged matters," Meadows' attorney, George Terwilliger, said in a letter to the committee last week.

"Now actions by the select committee have made such an appearance untenable. In short, we now have every indication from the information supplied to us ... that the select committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning executive privilege."

The panel's report also describes new details of the day of the attack, including an email sent by Meadows that said the National Guard would be present to "protect pro-Trump people."

During a meeting Monday, the Jan. 6 committee revealed text messages Meadows received during the Capitol riots. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., read some of the messages out loud.

"These text messages leave no doubt," she said. "The White House knew exactly what was happening here at the Capitol."

She read aloud one text from Donald Trump Jr.:

"As the violence continued, one of the president's sons texts Mr. Meadows, 'He's got to condemn this ASAP. The capitol police tweet is not enough,' Donald Trump Jr. texted. Meadows responded, 'I am pushing it hard. I agree.'

"Donald Trump Jr. texted again and again, urging action by the president. Quote, 'We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far. And gotten out of hand,' end quote. But hours passed without necessary action by the president."

The committee also wants to question Meadows about other details related to the Capitol attack, including messages from Meadows to a Jan. 6 rally organizer, efforts to have states send alternate electors to Congress who would keep Trump in power, his dealings with Clark and conversations with Trump laid out in Meadows' book The Chief's Chief.