Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is no longer working with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the panel confirmed Tuesday evening.
In a statement, committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said they would proceed with a planned Wednesday deposition of Meadows and would initiate contempt proceedings if he did not appear.
“Mark Meadows has informed the Select Committee that he does not intend to cooperate further with our investigation despite his apparent willingness to provide details about the facts and circumstances surrounding the January 6th attack, including conversations with President Trump, in the book he is now promoting and selling,” said Thompson and Cheney, who added that the panel “has numerous questions for Mr. Meadows about records he has turned over to the Committee with no claim of privilege, which include real-time communications with many individuals as the events of January 6th unfolded.
“We also need to hear from him about voluminous official records stored in his personal phone and email accounts, which were required to be turned over to the National Archives in accordance with the Presidential Records Act,” they added.
Meadows attorney George Terwilliger told Fox News earlier Tuesday that his client could not come to terms with the panel about how to proceed while former President Donald Trump’s claims of executive privilege are hashed out in court.
“We have made efforts over many weeks to reach an accommodation with the committee,” said Terwilliger, claiming that Meadows had wanted to appear voluntarily before the committee and answer questions on topics he did not believe were covered by executive privilege.
However, Terwilliger told Fox that the committee had indicated over the weekend it planned to examine subject matters that Meadows considered privileged. The lawyer also said the committee had issued at least one subpoena to third parties in order to obtain Meadows’ cellphone records — which Meadows had intended to hand over after screening them for privileged materials.
Thompson revealed last week that Meadows was “engaging” with the panel, had produced records and was expected to appear for an initial deposition.
“The Select Committee expects all witnesses, including Mr. Meadows, to provide all information requested and that the Select Committee is lawfully entitled to receive,” Thompson said at the time. “The committee will continue to assess his degree of compliance with our subpoena after the deposition.”
Meadows was initially subpoenaed by the select committee in September.
Dozens of Trump supporters and allies have been subpoenaed by the committee, and some of them have chosen not to cooperate or to exercise their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
On Thursday, Thompson told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that “in some instances, [pleading the Fifth Amendment] says you are part and parcel guilty to what occurred.”
Terwilliger told Fox that statement sounded alarm bells with Meadows and called into question “exactly what is going on with this committee.”
The most notable person to refuse to work with the panel has former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who has since been indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress after he refused to produce documents or give testimony.
Terwilliger did not say what Meadows would do if he faced similar treatment, but argued his client “has made every effort to try and accommodate and work with this committee” while keeping his position on privilege.
Most recently, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark declined to answer the committee’s questions after making similar executive privilege claims about his discussions with Trump. The committee approved contempt charges against him last week, though its report has not yet been voted on by the full House.
Also last week, Trump attorney John Eastman asserted his Fifth Amendment rights in telling the committee he will not testify.
“Dr. Eastman hereby asserts his Fifth Amendment right not to be a witness against himself in response to your subpoena,” Eastman attorney Charles Burnham wrote in a Dec. 1 letter to Thompson.
“Members of this very Committee have openly spoken of making criminal referrals to the Department of Justice and described the Committee’s work in terms of determining ‘guilt or innocence,’” Burnham added. “Dr. Eastman has a more than reasonable fear that any statements he makes pursuant to this subpoena will be used in an attempt to mount a criminal investigation against him.”
A rep for Terwilliger’s firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.
