The former Trump chief of staff initially was «engaging» with the committee but has since pulled involvement.
The House select committee investigating the plans to meet Monday evening to advance a contempt charge against former Trump White House chief of staff for failing to comply with its subpoena. Meadows had cooperated in part with the committee, handing over some email and text message records, but he failed to sit for a deposition last week and refused to turn over a slew of other documents, citing former President Donald Trump’s claims of privilege. As a result, the nine-person, Democrat-run committee is expected to vote to recommend that the House of Representatives find Meadows in contempt of Congress, as they did in October with, who had not cooperated at all. If the Democratic-controlled House votes to find him in contempt of Congress — as they did with Bannon — the case would then be turned over to the Justice Department. If the Justice Department charges him, he could face up to a year in jail if found guilty. Meadows’s attorney, George Terwilliger, argued in a letter to the committee on Monday that a contempt referral for Meadows «would be contrary to law, manifestly unjust, unwise, and unfair.» He wrote that the contempt of Congress statute was never intended to apply to «good-faith» assertions of executive privilege, and that prosecuting a senior presidential aide would be «unwise» because it could damage the institution of the presidency.
