Short of an arrest, it is almost impossible to imagine a politician having a worse week than Mark Meadows has had this week. The week began with the revelation that Trump tested positive seven days before it had ever been announced, nearly proving that the “Rose Garden Super Spreader Event,” in which the White House announced Amy Coney-Barrett’s nomination, all of it could be traced directly back to Trump. Chris Christie specifically accused Trump of giving him COVID which put Christie in intensive care for seven days, all of it making Meadows look every bit as bad as Trump.
But it was Meadows coy and amateur hour plan with the Select Committee investigating January 6th that leaves Meadows with very few good choices, going into next week. Meadows can surely expect the committee to move for a criminal contempt charge should Meadows not come to an agreement to appear now that the DC Appeals Court has ruled that Executive privilege doesn’t apply.
Moreover, it appears that Meadows may have waived the privilege to the extent it ever applied. Last night on CNN’s The Situation Room, Jaimie Gangel revealed that the Select Committee has hundreds of pages of communications documents that Mark Meadows voluntarily handed over, perhaps in preparation for his testimony – prior to revoking his agreement, or perhaps intentionally, hoping only that Trump would be happy to hear that Meadows refused to be interviewed. Regardless, the documents may contain damning information collected in real-time, from Meadows phone:
Gangel said:
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“One of the important things we know is Liz Cheney also says these documents that former chief of staff Mark Meadows has handed over to the committee — let’s just repeat, he handed them over voluntary. There was no claim of privilege. More than 6,000 pages of documents,” said Gangel. “What Liz Cheney has also said is, those texts, those emails which were on his personal phone are, quote, ‘extremely interesting.
And it is surely from that batch of documents from which comes the “power point” plan to steal the 2020 election, which involved Donald Trump declaring a national emergency. The release of documents may have waived any claim to executive privilege that Mark Meadows might have had and that was even prior to the DC Court of Appeals ruling that Trump could not make any claim to executive privilege regarding post-election and January 6th activities.
According to Claire McCaskill this morning on Morning Joe:
“Mark Meadows had a really bad day yesterday. When you read that opinion, if a unanimous court of appeals from the D.C. Circuit says what it said about executive privilege then Mark Meadows is on very, very shaky ground where he tries to now retreat and say, ‘Hey, I don’t have to cooperate because of executive privilege.’ You know, you can waive the privilege, given all these documents. There is going to be a vote to hold him in contempt at the beginning of the week.
Yes, again – short of an arrest, which is still not out of the question (at some point) if Meadows continues to refuse to testify, Meadows had about as bad a week in Washington as one could have… perhaps Meadows’s week means Trump had an even worse week. Tough call.
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact with any concerns.
