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Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows will no longer be cooperating with a committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, despite previous efforts to work with them.
Meadows and his attorney George Terwilliger plan to officially notify the committee Tuesday morning, after the senior Trump administration official could not come to terms with lawmakers on an arrangement to work with them.
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"We have made efforts over many weeks to reach an accommodation with the committee," Meadows's attorney George Terwilliger told Fox News.
FILE PHOTO: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows speaks to reporters following a television interview, outside the White House in Washington, Oct. 21, 2020. (REUTERS/Al Drago/File Picture/File Photo)
Terwilliger said Meadows was looking to appear voluntarily before the committee and answer questions that Meadows believed were not protected by executive privilege.
Meadows is set to appear on Hannity Tuesday evening.
Over the weekend, however, the committee demonstrated that they indeed planned to look into privileged subject matters, the attorney said. Terwilliger pointed to how, the committee had issued at least one subpoena to third parties for Meadows's cell phone records, which Meadows intended to turn over voluntarily after screening them for privileged material.
Terwilliger also cited a recent comment from committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., that gave Meadows pause.
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"The chairman of the committee … publicly said that another witness’s claiming of the Fifth Amendment would be tantamount to an admission of guilt," Terwilliger said, adding that this called into question "exactly what is going on with this committee."
FILE PHOTO: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows speaks to reporters following a television interview, outside the White House in Washington, Oct. 21, 2020. (REUTERS/Al Drago/File Picture/File Photo)
Meadows would not be the first to refuse compliance with the committee. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon failed to appear and was subsequently indicted for contempt of Congress following a referral from the House.
When asked how Meadows might respond to similar treatment, Terwilliger said he and Meadows will "cross that bridge when he come to it," but noted that Meadows "has made every effort to try and accommodate and work with this committee" while maintaining the position on privilege that "he must maintain." The committee, Terwilliger said, had not tried to meet him halfway.
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Federal prosecutors have not convicted anyone for contempt of Congress since the Watergate era and have not even tried to prosecute such a case since the 1980s. Terwilliger noted that in a recent case, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said that such matters are typically resolved through reaching some sort of accommodation.
Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., meets with the select committee on the Jan. 6 attack as they prepare to hold their first hearing Tuesday, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Monday, July 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The "x-factor" in the current situation, Terwilliger said, is the committee's "wholesale waiver of any notion of executive privilege." He said this position sets a dangerous precedent whereby any president of a different party could expose a past president's communications with senior staff.
When asked why he thinks the DOJ is now taking a more aggressive approach to contempt of Congress, Terwilliger would not posit a guess, stating that he "can't see into the minds of the people in the Justice Department."
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In addition to Bannon, the committee has also approved contempt charges against Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. Prosecutors have not moved to indict Clark at this time, as he has rescheduled an appearance before the committee following a claim that he missed a prior date due to medical reasons.