The House committee investigating the Capitol riot is standing by their push for the Justice Department to criminally charge ex-Trump aide Mark Meadows for contempt of Congress over his refusal to cooperate with the House probe. Matt Graves, who serves as U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., has informed the committee that federal authorities decided not to charge Meadows after the House referred him for prosecution on contempt charges.
“While today’s indictment of Peter Navarro was the correct decision by the Justice Department, we find the decision to reward Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino for their continued attack on the rule of law puzzling,” the committee said Friday. “Mr. Meadows and Mr. Scavino unquestionably have relevant knowledge about President Trump’s role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the events of January 6th. We hope the Justice Department provides greater clarity on this matter. As the Select Committee has argued in District Court, Mark Meadows’s claim that he is entitled to absolute immunity is not correct or justified based on the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel Memoranda. No one is above the law.”
In a follow-up statement, the panel added: “If the Department’s position is that either or both of these men have absolute immunity from appearing before Congress because of their former positions in the Trump Administration, that question is the focus of pending litigation.” It’s worth noting Peter Navarro — who, as the committee referenced, was charged by the Justice Department for contempt this week — held an official position in the Trump administration at the time of the riot, so whatever standard the Justice Department employed in approaching the referrals for prosecution implicating Navarro and the others just isn’t clear. Executive privilege claims have repeatedly come up in defenses for the stonewalling that’s been seen, which wasn’t enough to save Navarro from charges despite his official government role… so what saved Meadows?
Navarro was the second Trump ally found in contempt by the House riot committee to be actually charged by federal authorities. The first, Steve Bannon, is heading to trial in July — and he didn’t hold an official role with the White House or federal government when the riot took place.
Going forward, the House riot committee is planning the first installment in a new round of public hearings for June 9. That hearing, according to the committee, will be meant to “provide the American people with a summary of our findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” A witness list for the hearing and subsequent hearings in the series planned for June doesn’t appear to be publicly available as of this point. There’s already been a conclusion from a federal judge that Trump likely — although not certainly — committed criminal activity in association with his election subversion attempts.
