(Washington) Pressure is mounting in Donald Trump’s entourage: US elected officials on Monday recommended criminal proceedings against the former chief of staff of Republican billionaire Mark Meadows, who refuses to cooperate in their investigation into the assault on the Capitol .
This parliamentary commission, set up to understand the precise role of the former president and his entourage in the attack on the United States Congress on January 6, 2021, voted, shortly before 8 p.m., unanimously in favor of prosecutions targeting the former “chief of staff” of Donald Trump.
Mark Meadows, one of the closest advisers to the tempestuous president when thousands of his supporters invaded the Capitol in an attempt to block the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory, is at the heart of all attention.
The 62-year-old man has provided thousands of pages of official documents, emails and text messages to investigators, but refuses to testify before the commission at all costs. Mark Meadows faces prosecution on the grounds that he is trying, by his silence, “to obstruct a congressional investigation.”
PHOTO PATRICK SEMANSKY, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Donald Trump, left, chats with White House lawyer Pat Cipollone, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (right) in front the White House, September 24, 2020, in Washington.
“The texts and emails of Mark Meadows reveal his deep involvement in the preparation of the attack of January 6,” said the elected Jamie Raskin Monday evening.
In the vote on Monday, Democratic Representative Liz Cheney unveiled messages sent to Mr. Meadows on January 6 by Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, and by figures at conservative Fox News, urging him to ask the president to speak out to push back his supporters, who were then storming Congress.
” Foolish ”
This commission recommends prosecution “because he did not want to answer for what he knows about a brutal attack on our democracy,” Bennie Thompson, (Democratic) chairman of the special commission said Monday.
The recommendation of these nine elected officials should be adopted on Tuesday in the House of Representatives before being sent to the Ministry of Justice. The final decision to indict Mark Meadows rests with him.
This former senior White House official, known to be very discreet, risks prison.
His lawyer had previously denounced an “unfair” and “senseless” process and has already taken legal action against the so-called “January 6” commission, the date of the assault on the Capitol.
This group of elected officials is multiplying court orders and threats of indictment in Donald Trump’s entourage to gradually tighten its grip on the former president.
The sulphurous Steve Bannon, one of the architects of Trump’s victory in 2016, who also snubbed the commission of inquiry, has already been indicted for the same reason.
Donald Trump, anxious to avoid this threat, orders his followers to close ranks.
The elected Democrat and member of the commission Adam Schiff warned in a statement that if other witnesses plan not to respond to the summons of the special commission, they could also “risk jail”.
Presidential privileges?
This group of elected officials is advancing at a forced march, with the objective of publishing their findings before the mid-term elections of November 2022, in which the Republicans could regain control of the House and bury its work.
On the contrary, supporters of the former US president strive to minimize this attack, qualifying the parliamentary inquiry as a “witch hunt”, one of Donald Trump’s favorite expressions.
In parallel with these battles on Capitol Hill, the so-called “January 6” commission scored a major victory last week, when an appeals court ruled that Donald Trump could not invoke presidential privileges to block the transmission to the investigation of internal communications at the White House.
The former president still has a few days to appeal to the Supreme Court.