Prosecuting Donald Trump’s former chief of staff could create a precedent that hurts the Justice Department later.
with two counts of contempt. The charges, which each carry a maximum sentence of one year in jail, were seen as a warning shot to others who might resist the committee’s demands.But bringing a case against Meadows will be more challenging than bringing one against Bannon, analysts say. Bannon was not a White House official during the events surrounding Jan. 6 — so it’s harder for him to claim his conversations with the president should be protected.
Trump has sought to keep his White House records out of the hands of the Jan. 6 committee — though last week, a federal appeals court rejected his bid to do so.“This is a harder call than Bannon,” former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, who served in the Obama administration, said of compelling Meadows to appear. “Bannon was an easy call because he was out of the White House by the time he spoke to President Trump about the issues that the committee is interested in.
In 2008, for example, the department rebuffed charges against President George W. Bush’s chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, who had resisted subpoenas over the controversial forced resignations of U.S. attorneys.
George J. Terwilliger III, Meadows’s attorney, wrote to the committee on Monday that a referral for prosecution “would be contrary to law, manifestly unjust, unwise, and unfair.” He had earlier filed a lawsuit seeking to have a federal judge declare the committee’s subpoenas invalid.
Even if Meadows were to be prosecuted and convicted, that would not by itself get Congress the information it seeks, analysts said. To accomplish that, Congress would have to sue Meadows and have a judge hold him in civil contempt, throwing him in jail until he agreed to cooperate.“The criminal referral’s about punishment, but part of that process is not he gets ordered to go testify,” said former federal prosecutor Randall Eliason.
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