The congressional committee investigating the January 6th riot in the U.S. Capitol advanced a measure on Monday that refers former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress over his refusal to answer questions about the attack.
The bipartisan panel voted 9-0 to send the measure to the full house. The voting to ask the Justice Department to prosecute Meadows Is expected to begin as soon as Tuesday. Meadows was a member of the House before he joined the Trump administration.
“This is not about holding me in contempt, it’s not even about making the Capitol safer,” Meadows said. “This is about Donald Trump and about actually going after him once again.” The new text messages between Trump family members and Fox News hosts revealed that those close to Trump knew the attack was serious.
One of the messages that Donald Trump Jr. wrote to Meadows says, “We need an oval office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far. And gotten out of hand.” Another message Fox News’ Laura Ingraham wrote to Meadows wrote, “Mark, the president needs to tell the people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
“Please get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished,” Fox’s Brian Kilmeade wrote. “Can he make a statement asking people to leave the Capitol?” added Fox’s Sean Hannity.
The text message also suggested that Meadows was at the center of the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.“Yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked,” one lawmaker, whose name was not revealed, told Meadows.
