Federal judge plans to rule ‘quickly’ on Mark Meadows fight against subpoenas from the House January 6 committee
By Holmes Lybrand and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
A federal judge could rule soon on former White House chief of staff Mark Meadow’s legal challenge against subpoenas from the House select committee investigating January 6.
Judge Carl Nichols said he would issue a ruling “appropriately quickly.”
At a hearing on Wednesday, Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger III, argued that executive privilege extended to former aides to the president and that the subpoenas issued by the select committee were overly broad and violated Meadows’ Fourth Amendment rights.
The House referred Meadows last year to the Justice Department for refusing to fully comply with subpoenas. But the DOJ declined to indict him and Dan Scavino, former deputy chief of staff to then-President Donald Trump, on criminal contempt of Congress charges.
The House’s general counsel, Douglas Letter, told the judge that “Mr. Meadows has an obligation to answer questions” to the committee and that executive privilege, even if asserted during testimony, wouldn’t cover everything the House committee wants to ask Meadows about.
Terwilliger praised Nichols outside the courthouse as “very knowledgeable,” and said that Meadows’ legal team would wait for a ruling before making any decisions on the future of the court case.
Congressional subpoenas are difficult to enforce, and the judge nodded to that point during arguments on Wednesday. But Letter said he was confident Meadows would comply if the judge let the subpoena stand.
The-CNN-Wire
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