Meadows’s decision to cooperate comes on the same day an appeals court hears arguments over Trump’s privilege claims.<\/b>
\nMark Meadows, the former chief of staff for the Trump administration, has agreed to provide documents and closed-door testimony to the select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol building. Meadows was subpoenaed in September to provide documents and to testify to the commission. At the onset of that subpoena order, it appeared that Meadows would be cooperative. But by the end of October, Meadows was refusing to testify and to provide the materials that the commission had asked for, justifying his defiance on the basis that Trump\u2019s purported executive privilege limited him from discussing the final weeks of the former president\u2019s tenure in office. As a result of his reluctance to cooperate, Meadows faced the possibility of being charged with contempt of Congress, much like Trump\u2019s former adviser Steve Bannon. This past weekend, January 6 commission member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) said that the panel would soon decide whether they would vote on issuing such charges to Meadows as well. It\u2019s unclear whether it was the threat of contempt charges that motivated Meadows to become more cooperative. But regardless of why he\u2019s changed his mind, Meadows now appears to be sharing documents with the commission and has agreed to testify. \u201cMr. Meadows has been engaging with the Select Committee through his attorney,\u201d a statement from commission chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) said. \u201cHe has produced records to the committee and will soon appear for an initial deposition.\u201d Meadows could still face consequences if he has yet another change of heart, Thompson warned: The details surrounding the agreement made between Meadows and the January 6 commission haven\u2019t yet been made public. A statement from Meadows\u2019s lawyer, George Terwilliger, suggested that Meadows isn\u2019t planning to provide all of the information he has access to. Meadows and his lawyers will \u201ccontinue 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,\u201d Terwilliger said. Trump has asserted that his executive privilege as a former president means that his former aides cannot be compelled to testify if he doesn\u2019t want them to, a position that most legal experts say rests on questionable legal ground. According to the letter of the law, only a sitting president can assert executive privilege. A former president can sue to keep their records private, which Trump has done. But earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that Trump\u2019s assertions of privilege don\u2019t hold up in court. \u201c[Trump\u2019s] position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power \u2018exists in perpetuity,’\u201d opined Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. \u201cBut Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President. He retains the right to assert that his records are privileged, but the incumbent President \u2018is not constitutionally obliged to honor\u2019 that assertion.\u201d Trump has appealed Chutkan\u2019s order for the National Archives to hand over documents to the commission. Arguments for that appeal were heard by a three-judge panel on Tuesday, during which all three of the judges appeared skeptical of the former president\u2019s legal rationale for why his documents and communications records should remain private. \u201cThis all boils down to who decides,\u201d Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said during those hearings. \u201cWho decides when it is in the best interest of the United States to disclose presidential records? Is it the current occupant of the White House or the former?\u201d Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, and is based out of Madison, Wisconsin. Focusing on both national and local topics since the early 2000s, he has produced thousands of articles analyzing the issues of the day and their impact on the American people.<\/p>\n