January 6 committee says it is moving forward with criminal contempt for Mark Meadows

By Annie Grayer and Zachary Cohen, CNN

The House select committee investigating the January 6 riot informed Mark Meadows that they have “no choice” but to advance criminal contempt proceedings against him given that former President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff has decided to no longer cooperate with the panel, according to a new letter.

“The Select Committee is left with no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Mr. Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution,” committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat wrote in a letter dated December 7.

The letter, which the committee publicly released Wednesday, also reveals new details about the previous correspondence between the two parties, and shares for the first time in greater detail what information Meadows had voluntarily turned over to the committee.

Meadows informed the committee he will no longer cooperate through a letter from his attorney Tuesday.

“We agreed to provide thousands of pages of responsive documents and Mr. Meadows was willing to appear voluntarily, not under compulsion of the Select Committee’s subpoena to him, for a deposition to answer questions about non-privileged matters. Now actions by the Select Committee have made such an appearance untenable,” the letter from George J. Terwilliger II stated.

“In short, we now have every indication from the information supplied to us last Friday — upon which Mr. Meadows could expect to be questioned — that the Select Committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning Executive Privilege,” Terwilliger added.

CNN first reported last week that Meadows had begun cooperating with the committee, handing over thousands of documents and agreeing to appear for an interview this week.

Meadows’ about-face is due in part to learning over the weekend that the committee had “issued wide ranging subpoenas for information from a third party communications provider,” the letter notes.

“As a result of careful and deliberate consideration of these factors, we now must decline the opportunity to appear voluntarily for a deposition,” Terwilliger writes.

Terwilliger writes that Meadows would answer written questions “so that there might be both an orderly process and a clear record of questions and related assertions of privilege where appropriate.”

This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

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