Meadows contempt vote shows growing power of committee Jan. 6
Tuesday’s move against the former White House chief of staff is the latest attempt to infiltrate the inner circle of a former president who has seen the US Capitol come under attack by an agitated mob. by his plot to overturn a fair election. But it also shows how the House Select Committee investigating the attack is now taking on a much more important role than simply documenting a day that will live in infamy. It has become a key protagonist in the battle to save American democracy on the eve of the presidential election, in which Trump could attempt to regain power, through nefarious means if necessary.
By exposing such duplication, the committee is also building a picture of the cowardice, dishonesty, and for-profit that propaganda media figures and Republican lawmakers have bought into. Trump’s cult of personality, which led to the President being impeached twice in numerous attacks on the Constitution while he was in office. The same “Make America Great Again” industrial complex that is currently assisting Trump in his preparations for a new presidential run could threaten America’s political tradition even more severely in 2024.
The committee is in a race against time, as Republicans will shut down if they win the House back in 2022. And it’s not yet clear if voters will be shaken when they learn the full terrible truth of what. happened on January 6th when they voted in the midterm elections or not. next year and for three more years for the presidency.
But as it builds a picture of what happened 11 months ago, the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans, who broke the cult of the former President, is also revealing. personality of the world Trump. In that sense, the exploration of a historic event is becoming perhaps the most important forward-looking weapon in the growing struggle to preserve democracy from the threat the former President still poses. out.
Cheney, one of the few House Republicans to tell the truth about Trump’s crimes against the Constitution, said ahead of the vote to refer Meadows to the Justice Department for possible criminal actions. out.
‘He is destroying his legacy’
With the exception of Cheney and fellow GOP committee member Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the House of Representatives largely voted on the party line to consider Meadows not in favor of providing testimony to the committee after providing thousands of pages of evidence. including email and text exchange.
Some of those messages suggest that he was inundated with calls from some of Trump’s closest allies asking the then President to intervene in the uprising. But Trump refused to do so for 187 minutes.
In an exchange, the former President’s son, Donald Trump Jr., told Meadows as violence broke out that his father needed to “condemn this as soon as possible,” according to Cheney on Monday.
In another message Cheney read, Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who later misled viewers about the true nature of the uprising, wrote: “Mark, the President needs to tell everyone in the Capitol go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
In terms of it, Meadows was in a much stronger position than Bannon, who was not serving as a White House official at the time of the uprising, to avoid testifying before the committee by asserting executive privilege, tradition that presidents expect. on privacy in consultations with key aides. And there is no official closer to the president than the chief of staff.
But the committee argued that while it wanted extensive testimony from Meadows, some of its requests were clearly not within executive privilege, especially since Meadows had turned over many of the documents they wanted to ask him. . And the panel said the question of executive privilege did not arise uniformly because it wanted to talk to Meadows about circumstances that don’t always involve Trump — such as any interactions that Trump might have had. he has had with Republican officials in Georgia who have been pressuring Trump to topple Biden’s election victory in a critical swing.
In a new revelation on Tuesday, California Representative Zoe Lofgren revealed a text sent from an unnamed election official from Peach State to Meadows as Trump leaned on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “This call needs to be ended,” the official said, according to Lofgren.
But that argument from Trump’s allies is undermined by the fact that Meadows appears to refuse to discuss the events he described in his new book. One committee member, Rep. Adam Schiff, argued that if Congress could not enforce the subpoena against Meadows, the possibility of future scrutiny of an over-infringing executive branch would be null disable.
“Nobody is above the law,” said the California Democrat.
Some of Trump’s allies in the House, including some suspected of having ties to him on January 6, have turned the tables to argue that the abuse of power was indeed the work of those investigating the investigation. implemented insurgency – a strategy to turn the tide. perfection of the former President.
Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, for example, described the job of the White House Chief of Staff as “the closest person” to his relationship with the president and said it was “in the public interest” to be in the public interest. Meadows’ dealings with Trump. is kept secret. However, the then chief of staff did not consult with Trump about a major national security crisis or a national disaster. He was on the scene when one of the worst attacks on America’s political freedoms in generations – arguably a far greater threat to the public interest than a breach of intelligence. presidential secrecy.
‘He calls his own book fake news’
Another member of the committee, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, accused Meadows of only changing his mind to cooperate with the committee after being angered by Trump over the memoir released earlier this month.
“He calls his own book fake news, which is a pretty devastating review to show on your own book,” Raskin said during a floor debate on Tuesday.
Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina who, despite his staunch conservatism sometimes works across the aisle, is Trump’s latest to explore the options and consequences inherent in participating. orbit of the former President.
With this in mind, the committee not only uncovered Trump’s transgressions in a historic purge against fundamental American political values, but also evidence of his enduring power within the Communist Party. peace and among supporters of his conservative, propaganda media. It highlights the fact that far from ending on January 6th, the threat to the democracy that Trump represents will build on the day.
Voters may decide that all of this is not enough to disqualify the former President from another view at the White House. But they wouldn’t be able to say they weren’t warned.