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Donald Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows initially complied with the House Committee’s subpoena but eventually backed out. The bipartisan panel has voted this week to hold Meadows in criminal contempt, releasing a 52-page report on why Meadows should be held.
The House Committee probing the Capitol insurrection released a 52-page report detailing why Meadows should be referred for criminal contempt. The report shed light on Meadows’ activities in the efforts to overturn the 2020 elections. One detail revealed that Meadows asked members of Congress to help connect the twice-impeached former president to state lawmakers to make a case for overturning the election and staying in power.
Another detail revealed that Meadows indicated in an email that he had the National Guard on alert to protect the pro-Trump mob that broke into the Capitol. This would raise questions regarding the slow response of the National Guard on the day the insurrection took place.
Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks explained that the situation would only worsen for Meadows moving forward. Wine-Banks also explained that the Appeals Court rejected the former president’s attempt to block the National Archives from turning over the documents to the committee has only strengthened the panel.
“Mark Meadows is a key figure — he was with the president on and before Jan 6th,” said Wine-Banks. “He knows what the president knows and when he knew it. He knows whether he worked with the committee, the Jan 6th organizers. There are so many things that only he can tell and if Congress is going to have any oversight role and any role in preventing a future occurrence of an assault on our democracy, they need this information in order to craft legislation.”
The House committee voted to unanimously refer Meadows for criminal contempt and during the hearing, vice-chair Rep. Liz Cheney read out loud the text messages sent to Meadows by several individuals, from lawmakers to Fox News personalities, and even from Trump’s own son, Donald Trump Jr. asking for the former president to stop the insurrection.
In one message to meadows, Donald Trump Jr. said that an address from his father from the Oval Office must be done, and texted Meadows repeatedly trying to get his father to stop the violence. Fox News hosts Brian Kilmeade, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity, also called for the former president to televise remarks asking the insurrectionists to leave.
