House holds top Trump aide in contempt amid January 6 text revelations

The US House of Representatives voted to hold Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt on Tuesday night, after text messages revealed fresh details inside the White House during the January 6 Capitol riot.

The Democratic-controlled chamber of Congress voted 222-208 in favour of advancing criminal contempt proceedings against Meadows after the one-time congressman from North Carolina stopped co-operating with a congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.

The panel voted unanimously on Monday night to hold Meadows in contempt for his lack of co-operation with their investigation.

Tuesday’s House vote marks an escalation, sending the matter to the US justice department, which will weigh proceeding with criminal charges against the former White House chief of staff. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former political adviser, was indicted last month by a federal grand jury for contempt of Congress after he failed to comply with a subpoena issued by the January 6 committee.

The censure of Meadows follows an uproar over text messages that shed light on how Trump’s allies reacted to the attack on the Capitol, which left at least five people dead and interrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

In one text published by the January 6 committee, Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, messaged Meadows calling for his father to address the nation while the attack was under way.

“We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far. And gotten out of hand,” the younger Trump wrote.

Several Fox News personalities, including Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade and Sean Hannity, also implored Meadows to intervene.

“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,” Ingraham wrote.

Hannity said: “Can he make a statement asking people to leave the Capitol?” 

Liz Cheney, the Republican lawmaker from Wyoming who is vice-chair of the January 6 committee, read several of the texts aloud at a hearing on Monday night before the panel voted to advance the contempt charges. Cheney is one of just two Republican House members, alongside Illinois’s Adam Kinzinger, to sit on the committee after House Republican leaders refused to participate.

Asked about the text messages, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said: “It is disappointing and unfortunately not surprising that some of the very same individuals who were willing to warn, condemn and express horror over what happened on January 6 . . . in private were totally silent in public, or even worse, were spreading lies and conspiracy theories.”

The vote against Meadows marked the latest flashpoint in a politically fraught process that has laid bare the fissures between Democrats and Republicans over their response to the former president. Trump was impeached this year over his role in the attack, but was found not guilty of inciting an insurrection following a Senate trial.

Trump was not at the Capitol on January 6, but he held a rally on the national mall hours before the attack where he told crowds of supporters: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.”

Meadows was Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff. His relations with the January 6 committee have been strained after he initially refused to co-operate, then later began sharing documents with the panel before withdrawing his support.

Meadows’ latest U-turn came after Trump was reportedly outraged by passages in the chief of staff’s forthcoming memoir in which he reportedly alleged that the then-president knowingly tested positive for Covid-19 ahead of a televised debate with Biden.

Trump, who is weighing another bid for the White House in 2024, has urged his allies not to comply with the January 6 committee, which has also issued subpoenas to former top advisers including Stephen Miller, Kayleigh McEnany and Bill Stepien.