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Thursday, December 9, 2021

RSN: FOCUS: Bess Levin | Mark Meadows Really Doesn't Want the January 6 Committee to See His Cell Phone Records!

 



 

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Mark Meadows speaks to reporters December 18, as the House votes to impeach Donald Trump. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
FOCUS: Bess Levin | Mark Meadows Really Doesn't Want the January 6 Committee to See His Cell Phone Records!
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "Back in the day, by which we mean just over a week ago, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was cooperating with the January 6 committee, and its investigation of the events before, during, and after the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Now, Meadows is not only refusing to appear for a deposition - a move that could land him in criminal contempt - he's suing the committee. What changed?"

He’s not only refusing to cooperate but suing the House panel.

Back in the day, by which we mean just over a week ago, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was cooperating with the January 6 committee, and its investigation of the events before, during, and after the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Now, Meadows is not only refusing to appear for a deposition—a move that could land him in criminal contempt—he’s suing the committee. What changed? For one thing, Donald Trump is reportedly extremely angry with Meadows over the ex-chief of staff’s new book, and it would appear the guy is trying his hardest to get back into Trump’s good graces. For another, the committee apparently made clear they want all of Meadows’s relevant communications, not just the documents he voluntarily turned over, and for some reason, Meadows would prefer those never see the light of day.

So now, this is happening. Per CNN:

Former Trump White House chief of Staff Mark Meadows is suing the House select committee investigating January 6 and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Meadows is asking a federal court to block enforcement of the subpoena the committee issued him as well as the subpoena it issued to Verizon for his phone records, according to the complaint filed Wednesday.

Prior to Meadows’s recent decision to halt cooperation with the committee, he had turned over approximately 6,000 pages worth of documents. That includes information from his personal email account and personal cell phone that are relevant to the committee’s investigation. In one November 6, 2020, text exchange with a member of Congress, Meadows reportedly said, “I love it,” in a discussion about the possibility of appointing alternate electors in certain states, and the member acknowledged the plan would be “highly controversial.”

And while that already sounds pretty damning on its own, it seems like there could be even more not-great exchanges Meadows doesn’t want investigators to get its hands on. According to The New York Times, Meadows told the committee that, conveniently, he had already turned in the cell phone he used on January 6 to his service provider, and was therefore withholding approximately 1,000 text messages connected to the device. Per the Times, the House panel recently sent “a flurry of subpoenas to telecommunications companies seeking the data of dozens of individuals, including Mr. Meadows, prompting his lawyer to object to a request he said sought ‘intensely personal communications’ with no relevance to any legitimate investigation.” (Incidentally, the subpoenas do not actually seek the content of any communications, only the dates and times of when calls and messages took place, a committee aide told the Times.)

Meadows’s suit comes on the heels of the news that the committee will move forward with a criminal contempt referral against him for refusing to appear for a scheduled deposition. “There is no legitimate legal basis for Mr. Meadows to refuse to cooperate with the select committee and answer questions about the documents he produced, the personal devices and accounts he used, the events he wrote about in his newly released book and, among other things, his other public statements.… The select committee is left with no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Mr. Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution,” committee chair Bennie Thompson wrote in a letter to Meadows’s lawyer.

While the panel has not announced a date for a vote on a contempt referral, it is all but certain that it will be approved by both the committee and the House, making a formal recommendation to the Justice Department to prosecute, according to the Times. In October, the House voted to recommend charges against Steve Bannon for refusal to cooperate, and the DOJ announced his indictment in November. On Tuesday, a judge set a ridiculously far-off trial date of July 18 for Bannon, putting virtually zero pressure on him in the meantime to cooperate.

For those of you lucky enough not to know what the above is in reference to, Boebert staged the photo as a response to the backlash over fellow congressional gun nut Thomas Massie, who, days after the school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, tweeted a photo of his family in front of a Christmas tree posing with guns and requesting that Santa “please bring ammo.” Boebert’s stunt has drawn outrage from the contingent of the country actually concerned about the innocent lives lost in mass shootings, with Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, calling Boebert an irresponsible, gun-owning parent who is “likely raising a future school shooter or domestic terrorist.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “Tell me again where Christ said ‘use the commemoration of my birth to flex violent weapons for personal political gain’? lol @ all the years Republicans spent on cultural hysteria of society ‘erasing Christmas and it’s meaning’ when they’re doing that fine all on their own.” She added: “When you pose in front of a Christmas Tree and can name all those guns but can’t name the gifts of the Wise Men.”

You’ll never believe it but the guy Trump endorsed for Georgia governor says he wouldn’t have certified the 2020 election results

Who could have seen this coming other than everyone aware of the fact that Trump is strategically trying to install loyalists who could help him steal the election in 2024? Per Axios:

“Not with the information that was available at the time and not with the information that has come out now. They had plenty of time to investigate this. And I wouldn’t have signed it until those things had been investigated and that’s all we were asking for,” [David Perdue] said.

There has been no evidence widespread fraud took place in Georgia’s elections last year and the November results were counted three times, once by hand…. In an interview with Axios, Perdue said he would also have called for a special session of the legislature if he had been governor one year ago.

Perdue told Axios that the session would not have been held with the intent of changing “the November outcome,” but simply to “protect and fix what was wrong for the January election.” Which, sure, David, sure. Last month, Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger confirmed that Trump threatened him over the 2020 election results while demanding he magically come up with enough votes to beat Biden, a request Raffensperger denied.

Interesting take from a guy who has asked for and received billions of dollars from said government

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