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(WASHINGTON) — Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, is cooperating with a House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and providing some documents, putting off for now the panel’s threat to hold him in contempt, the committee’s chairman said Tuesday.
But the panel “will continue to assess his degree of compliance,” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson said in a statement.
The agreement comes after two months of negotiations between Meadows and the committee and after the Justice Department indicted longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon for defying a subpoena.
Thompson said Meadows has produced records and will soon appear for an initial deposition.
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“The Select Committee expects all witnesses, including Mr. Meadows, to provide all information requested and that the Select Committee is lawfully entitled to receive,” Thompson said.
Meadows’ lawyer, George Terwilliger, said he was continuing to work with the committee and its staff on a “potential accommodation” that would not require Meadows to waive executive privilege nor “forfeit the long-standing position that senior White House aides cannot be compelled to testify before Congress,” as Trump has argued.
The tentative agreement with Meadows highlights the committee’s efforts to balance its need for information about Trump’s role in the violent insurrection with the former president’s assertions — including in an ongoing court case — that Congress cannot obtain information about his private conversations with top aides at the time.
While the committee has rejected Trump’s arguments and President Joe Biden has waived the privilege as the current executive, the panel wants to move quickly and avoid lengthy legal entanglements, if possible, that could delay the investigation.
Terwilliger had previously made clear that…
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Source : time
