Meadows Bites Back, Sues Pelosi and Others Over Jan 6 Subpoena
With the January 6th select committee moving their investigation forward in ever-more aggressive ways, some of the group’s targets are now pushing back, complaining that the group is moving beyond the bounds of decency and precedent.
One such target of the committee is former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who this week stopped cooperating with the group after they received records of his from a third-party electronics provider.
Meadows is now suing the committee, and its individual members.
Mark Meadows, facing the looming prospect of criminal contempt of Congress charges, is suing to block a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee, arguing that it unconstitutionally intrudes on former President Donald Trump’s powers to invoke executive privilege.
The former White House chief of staff filed the suit Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the members of the Capitol riot panel and the committee itself. His attorney says he’s been put in an “untenable position” of choosing to defy the committee — and risk criminal prosecution — or defy his former boss Donald Trump’s attempt to assert executive privilege to block his testimony.
“The Select Committee acts absent any valid legislative power and threatens to violate longstanding principles of executive privilege and immunity that are of constitutional origin and dimension,” the suit filed by Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger contends.
Traditionally, the current administration is responsible for extending executive privilege to previous administrations, and President Joe Biden has repeatedly refused to allow Donald Trump that right.
Meadows is the second Trump adviser to be referred for a criminal contempt charge, with Steve Bannon’s trial set to begin in July of 2022.
