Donald Trump: January 6 committee investigation threatens former White House chief of staff

Legal threats are flying and tensions are building as the members of Congress investigating the Capitol riot meet resistance.

Former US president Donald Trump. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Members of US Congress investigating the Capitol riot have threatened to pursue criminal contempt charges against Donald Trump’s former chief of staff over his refusal to comply with a subpoena, ramping up a legal war against the former president’s inner circle

Mark Meadows, the fourth and final White House chief of staff during Mr Trump’s tenure, was subpoenaed by the congressional committee investigating the riot in September. He has bluntly refused to co-operate.

“Mr Meadows remains under the instructions of former president Trump to respect longstanding principles of executive privilege. It now appears the courts will have to resolve this conflict,” his lawyer said on Thursday, US time.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP

Mr Trump has attempted to assert executive privilege to keep documents and testimony about his actions leading up to and during the January 6 insurrection secret. So far, the courts have rejected his efforts, as has the current White House.

On Tuesday, the congressional committee subpoenaed former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, political adviser Stephen Miller, former White House personnel director John McEntee, former deputy chief of staff Chrisopher Liddell, former personal assistant Nicholas Luna, and Mr Meadows, among others.

“The Select Committee wants to learn every detail of what went on in the White House on January 6 and the days beforehand,” the panel’s chairman, Democrat Bennie Thompson, said at the time.

“We need to know precisely what role the former president and his aides played in efforts to stop the counting of the electoral votes and if they were in touch with anyone outside the White House attempting to overturn the outcome of the election.

“We believe the witnesses subpoenaed today have relevant information and we expect them to comply fully with the Select Committee’s investigation as we work to get answers for the American people, make recommendations on changes to the law to protect our democracy, and help ensure that nothing like January 6 ever happens again.”

Mr Trump’s former political adviser Stephen Bannon has already been held in contempt for refusing to comply with an earlier subpoena. The US Justice Department must now decide whether or not to prosecute him.

Former president Donald Trump. Picture: Sergio Flores/AFP

President Joe Biden won last year’s presidential election by a margin of 306 electoral votes to 232. Mr Trump’s attempts to challenge his defeat through the courts, claiming it was tainted by widespread voter fraud, went nowhere.

On January 6, as a joint session of Congress met to certify Mr Biden's victory, a mob of Trump supporters overran the Capitol Building in an attempt to halt the vote count.

Mr Trump's actions during the violence remain shrouded in mystery. We know he was in the White House throughout the assault, and that at one point he called a Republican senator to lobby him to vote against certifying the election outcome. Beyond that, it’s unclear what the president was doing for hours, and whether he made any attempt to quell the violence.

It took him until 4:17pm, more than three hours after the attack began, to publicly call for his supporters to leave the Capitol.

“I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now,” Mr Trump said in a video message.

“Go home. We love you, you’re very special … I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.”

The president’s behaviour on January 6 is a chief subject of the congressional inquiry, which is examining both the riot itself and the weeks leading up to it.

Donald Trump’s activities on January 6 remain largely unknown. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Last night, in a letter to Mr Meadows’ lawyers, Mr Thompson made it clear the committee was running out of patience with the intransigence of Mr Trump’s former staffers.

He attached a letter from the current White House Counsel’s office rejecting Mr Trump’s assertions of executive privilege.

“The law requires that Mr Meadows comply with the subpoena absent an applicable immunity or valid assertion of a constitutionally based privilege,” Mr Thompson wrote.

“The attached letter from the White House Counsel’s office, dated today, eviscerates any plausible claim of testimonial immunity or executive privilege, and compels compliance with the Select Committee’s subpoena.”

Issuing a clear ultimatum, he said Congress would pursue criminal contempt charges against Mr Meadows unless he showed up for a deposition on Friday, local time, less than 24 hours later.

“The Select Committee will view Mr Meadows’ failure to appear at the deposition, and to procure responsive documents or a privilege log indicating the specific basis for withholding any documents you believe are protected by privilege, as wilful noncompliance,” the committee chairman said.

“Such wilful noncompliance with the subpoena would force the Select Committee to consider invoking the contempt of Congress procedures, which could result in a referral from the House of Representatives to the Department of Justice for criminal charges.”

Mr Trump, for his part, has repeatedly denounced the committee’s investigation as a politically motivated witch hunt. In a statement this week, he claimed the real insurrection happened on November 3, 2020 – election day.

“The Unselect Committee of politically ambitious hacks continues to subpoena people wanting to know about those protesting, on January 6, the insurrection which took place during the presidential election of November 3,” he said.

More than a year after his defeat, the former president continues to believe – contrary to all evidence – that he won the election.

Back in May, Republicans in the Senate blocked the creation of a fully bipartisan and independent commission to investigate January 6. That commission would have been staffed by an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.
Unable to proceed with that idea, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi instead created the select committee in its current form, with seven Democratic members and two Republicans.

Both Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, previously voted to impeach Mr Trump for his role in inciting the riot. Both are taking part in the investigation against the wishes of their party’s leadership.

“We are confronting a threat that we’ve never faced before: a former president who is attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, aided by political leaders who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man,” Ms Cheney argued during a speech this week.

Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Picture: Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images/AFP

She alluded to Mr Trump’s remarks at a recent fundraising dinner.

“He reportedly said, once again, that the insurrection was on November 3, and that the events of January 6 – when a violent mob invaded the Capitol in an effort to overturn the will of the American people – that those events were a ‘protest’. That they were justified,” she said.

“Political leaders who sit silent in the face of these false and dangerous claims are aiding a former president who is at war with the rule of law and the Constitution.

“When our constitutional order is threatened, as it is now, rising above partisanship is not merely an aspiration, it is an obligation.

“I am a conservative Republican. I disagree strongly with nearly everything President Biden has done since he’s been in office. His policies are bad for this country.

“I love my party. I love its history, I love its principles. But I love my country more.”