The January 6 select committee has increasingly found itself in the news once more. Late Friday night and on Saturday morning, the select committee's Twitter account shared documents calling on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to reject what the tweet called former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows' "baseless claim" that they saw as amounting to "his obstruction of our investigation."
The account tweeted multiple times to really drive the point home.
Mark Meadows has continuously cited executive privilege, which a joint statement from Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Liz Cheney (R-WY), the committee's chair and vice chair, respectively, addressed.
"The Select Committee’s filing today urges the Court to reject Mark Meadows’s baseless claims and put an end to his obstruction of our investigation. Mr. Meadows is hiding behind broad claims of executive privilege even though much of the information we’re seeking couldn’t possibly be covered by privilege and courts have rejected similar claims because the committee’s interest in getting to the truth is so compelling. It’s essential that the American people fully understand Mr. Meadows’s role in events before, on, and after January 6th. His attempt to use the courts to cover up that information must come to an end," they said in their Friday night statement.
Using testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, who had been a special assistant to Meadows and former President Donald Trump, the select committee is calling on the courts to enforce a subpoena against Meadows, as its members believe Meadows had been warned of potential violence ahead of the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The select committee had recommended Meadows be found in contempt of Congress last December, which the U.S. House of Representatives voted 222-208 to do. Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was found in contempt of Congress last October in a vote of 229-202, and has been indicted by the Department of Justice, though he pled "Not Guilty" to the charges. Earlier this month, the House also voted to hold other advisors, Dan Scavino Jr. and Peter Navarro in contempt of Congress as well, by 220-203.
There has been speculation as to when the select committee, which was formed several months ago now, will hold public hearings. Though it was thought that they would take place May, which begins just a week from now, it now looks that they will take place in June.
Ben Williamson, an advisor to Meadows, retweeted GOP strategist Matt Whitlock calling out the select committee for their delays.
Republicans have been against the January 6 select committee for some time now, and they continue to be against it, as Jean Yi highlighted for FiveThirtyEight in Friday's edition of Pollapalooza. "Americans Are Moving On From Jan. 6 — Even If Congress Hasn't," she wrote.
As she explained:
It might be in the committee’s best interest to stick to that timeline, as the fate of the committee is uncertain if the GOP takes over control of the House next year. Moreover, many Americans want to move on from investigating the events of Jan. 6. A recent Navigator Research poll found, for instance, that 39 percent of registered voters thought the House committee investigating the attack was too focused on the past, compared to 49 percent who said the committee was doing important work. And a January poll from the Pew Research Center found that Americans were pretty divided over whether too much attention was being devoted to the insurrection: Thirty-five percent said “too much” attention had been paid to the attacks, while 33 percent said the “right amount” and 31 percent said “too little.” That said, in another January poll (this one from Quinnipiac), 44 percent of Americans thought it was time to move on, while 50 percent thought that the attack should never be forgotten.
Yi also aptly pointed out that "Overall, this paints a picture of a Republican Party that might not fully support what happened on Jan. 6 but is very much ready to move on and, broadly speaking, still backs the former president. And with such a large share of Americans having already made up their mind on this issue, it’s hard to imagine a situation in which revelations from the Jan. 6 committee change people’s minds significantly."
