Mark Meadows Becomes First Ex-House Member To Be Held In Criminal Contempt Since 1830s

The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to recommend former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for criminal contempt at the Department of Justice for his failure to attend a scheduled deposition with the committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. This makes Meadows the only former House member referred for contempt in nearly two centuries.

The House of Representatives voted 222-208 to hold Meadows in contempt, CNN reported. The Justice Department now has to decide whether it will press criminal charges against the former chief of staff for Donald Trump. The House vote followed the Jan. 6 committee’s Monday vote in favor of holding Meadows in contempt of Congress.

Republican Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming joined Democrats in voting in favor of the referral. The vote comes nearly two centuries after the House last voted to hold a former member in contempt in the 1830s, The Guardian reported.

Meadows served as a representative for North Carolina’s 11^th congressional district from 2013 to 2020.

The select panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said Meadows, as the chief of staff at the time of the Capitol riot, “played a role in or was witness to key events leading up to and including the January 6^th assault on the United States Capitol.” Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also spoke on the matter, tweeting that Tuesday night’s “bipartisan” vote was a means of fulfilling “our duty to the Constitution and the nation to find the truth of that dark day.”

Last week, Meadows filed a lawsuit against Pelosi and the Jan. 6 select committee, claiming that the committee issued “two overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoenas,” including one that asked telecom Verizon to submit Meadows’ personal phone records. Meadows’ lawsuit was filed just hours after the panel announced plans to refer him for criminal contempt.

Meadows previously provided documents to the select panel but he since refused to engage further as he insisted that he was protected by executive privilege. Thompson argued ahead of the House vote that the issue wasn’t “about any sort of privilege or immunity” but about Meadows “refusing to comply with the subpoena to discuss the records he himself turned over,” NBC News reported. Meadows has refused to attend two scheduled interviews with the committee.

Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, said in a statement Tuesday that his client did not stop cooperating, NPR reported. “He has fully cooperated as to documents in his possession that are not privileged and has sought various means to provide other information while continuing to honor the former president’s privilege claims,” Terwilliger said.

If the Justice Department pursues a prosecution in the case, Meadows could be fined and face up to one year in jail for each contempt.

The Jan. 6 Capitol riot claimed five lives and injured hundreds of individuals.