Navigation
  • Inter Softech
  • World
  • National
  • Business
  • Education
  • Crime
  • Politics
  • Health
  • More
    • Entertainment
    • Lifestyle
    • Technology
    • Sports
Breaking News
  |  Indonesia says it will push back Rohingya refugees adrift on leaking boat   |  Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say   |  Harry Reid, who led Senate Democrats for 12 years, dies at 82   |  Denver gunman who killed five in shooting rampage knew victims   |  Prince Andrew lawyer seeks to halt US case as accuser ‘lives in Australia’   |  Russian court orders closure of another human rights group   |  Hong Kong media outlet Stand News to close after police raid   |  Manipur NPP leader Letpao Haokip joins BJP   |  Jharkhand: Rs 25 per litre relief in price of fuel for two wheelers of the poor   |  19-year-old stabbed to death by friend’s father: Kerala Police   |  Akhilesh takes Lord Hanuman out on Vijay Yatra   |  Paul Bettany: having Johnny Depp texts read aloud in libel trial was ‘an unpleasant feeling’   |  Russian court increases jail sentence for Gulag historian   |  Jesus statue smashed in spate of attacks on India’s Christian community   |  Jean-Marc Vallée, director of Dallas Buyers Club, Wild and Big Little Lies, dies aged 58   |  Palma to limit cruise ships after environmental concerns   |  Donald Trump golf resorts claimed at least £3.3m in UK furlough support   |  Afghan ex-BBC journalist stranded for months due to Home Office scheme delays   |  England cricket capitulations have gone from car-crash to commonplace   |  Tennis star Denis Shapovalov tests positive for Covid after arriving in Sydney

Latest News

Capitol attack panel recommends Mark Meadows for criminal prosecution

December 14, 2021
92

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Monday voted to recommend the criminal prosecution for former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, punishing Donald Trump’s most senior aide for refusing to testify about the 6 January insurrection.

The select committee advanced the contempt of Congress report for Meadows unanimously, sending the matter to a vote before the full House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the citation as soon as Tuesday.

Bennie Thompson, the chair of the select committee, said in an opening statement before the panel recommended Meadows’ referral to the justice department that Trump’s former White House chief of staff displayed willful noncompliance in his defiance of his subpoena.

“It comes down to this,” Thompson said. “Mr Meadows started by doing the right thing: cooperating. He handed over records that he didn’t try to shield behind some excuse. But in an investigation like ours, that’s just a first step.

“When the records raise questions – as these most certainly do – you have to come in and answer those questions. And when it was time for him to follow the law, come in, and testify on those questions, he changed his mind and told us to pound sand. He didn’t even show up.”

The select committee said in the contempt report they were seeking charges against Meadows after he attempted to obstruct the investigation in myriad ways, from refusing to testify to frustrating their efforts to locate and discover documents relevant to the Capitol attack.

The select committee also said Meadows should be prosecuted since he refused to testify even about information he voluntarily provided to the panel through his own document production and conceded were not covered by claims of executive privilege advanced by Trump.

Over the course of a near-hour-long business meeting, the select committee outlined in detail the materials Meadows had turned over to the panel – and how Meadows then promptly refused to testify about those very records.

Meadows turned over about 9,000 documents as part of a cooperation deal, the select committee said, in his effort to engage with the inquiry to a degree in order to avoid an immediate criminal referral that befell other Trump administration aides who defied subpoenas.

Among the materials Meadows turned over to the select committee was a PowerPoint presentation titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference and Options for 6 JAN”, which recommended Trump declare a national security emergency to unilaterally return himself to office.

He also turned over text messages – read out loud by the select committee’s vice chair, Liz Cheney – that he received as the 6 January riot unfolded, including from Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr, who implored him “we need an Oval Office address” to stop the Capitol attack.

Meadows received more texts, the select committee said, from an unnamed lawmaker, who messaged him the day after the Capitol attack: “Yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked.”

But his cooperation with the select committee ended with the document production and Meadows informed the panel last week that he would not answer questions because he had learned that House investigators had subpoenaed call detail records for his personal phone.

The select committee said Meadows’ refusal to testify constituted noncompliance with his subpoena, which was first issued in September, and initiated proceedings to recommend that the House hold him in contempt of Congress.

The move by the select committee poses damaging consequences for Trump’s most senior aide: if it is approved by the House, the justice department is required to take the matter before a grand jury, which previously indicted Trump strategist Steve Bannon for subpoena defiance.

A successful contempt prosecution could result in up to a year in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – although the misdemeanor charge may not ultimately lead to his cooperation, and pursuing the offense could still take years.

The select committee targeted Meadows from the outset of the investigation as it sought to uncover the extent of his role in Trump’s scheme to subvert the results of the 2020 election and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win from taking place on 6 January.

The Guardian previously reported, for instance, that hours before the Capitol attack, Trump made a call from the White House to operatives working from the Willard hotel in Washington DC and pressed them about stopping Biden from being named president.

But House investigators said in a 51-page contempt report for Meadows that they had also wanted to question him about a range of issues about the 6 January insurrection, including an email he sent that said the national guard would be there to “protect pro Trump people”.

The select committee said they wanted to ask about text messages and emails about having state legislatures send Trump slates of electors to Congress – a plan that one congressman told him was “highly controversial”, to which Meadows responded: “I love it.”

House investigators said in the contempt report that they wanted to depose Meadows about texts he sent in December 2020 about installing the Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general, as well as texts to organizers of the 6 January rally.

The select committee said it also had questions about why Meadows used a personal cellphone, an encrypted Signal messaging app and two personal Gmail accounts for official business – and whether their contents had been turned over to the National Archives.

Counsel for the select committee noted additionally that it was untenable for Meadows to claim executive privilege protection as a way to dodge testifying before the panel after he wrote about potentially privileged conversations with Trump in his new book.

“Mr Meadows has shown his willingness to talk about issues related to the select committee’s investigation across a variety of media platforms – anywhere, it seems, except to the select committee,” the panel said in the contempt report.

During the contempt vote, the select committee beamed screenshots of texts he had received on his personal cellphone from lawmakers on 6 January and, crucially, a passage from his book that described a private conversation he had with Trump as rioters breached the Capitol.

The select committee showed Meadows wrote in his book: “When he got offstage, President Trump let me know that he had been speaking metaphorically about the walk to the Capitol. He knew as well as anyone that we couldn’t organize a trip like that on such short notice.”

The move to recommend Meadows’ criminal prosecution marks the third such instance by the select committee, after it first approved a contempt of Congress citation against Bannon in October, and then against Clark last month, for defying subpoenas.

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

facebookShare on Facebook
TwitterTweet
FollowFollow us

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Advertisment

Recent Posts

  • Indonesia says it will push back Rohingya refugees adrift on leaking boat
    Latest News, World
    December 29, 2021
    Indonesian authorities have said they will push a boat containing 120 Rohingya Muslims back to international waters despite fears that it could sink off the country’s northernmost province of Aceh. The boat was reportedly leaking, had a damaged […]
  • Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say
    Latest News, World
    December 29, 2021
    Simple plastic beads could save the lives of some of the thousands of porpoises and other cetaceans that get caught in fishing nets each year, scientists say. Harbour porpoises use echolocation to find their prey and for orientation. However, their […]
  • Harry Reid, who led Senate Democrats for 12 years, dies at 82
    Latest News, World
    December 29, 2021
    Harry Reid, who emerged from the unforgiving political landscape of Las Vegas, Nevada, to lead the Senate Democrats for 12 turbulent years, died on Tuesday at age 82. Reid died Tuesday, “peacefully” and surrounded by friends “following a courageous, […]
  • Denver gunman who killed five in shooting rampage knew victims
    Latest News, World
    December 29, 2021
    A gunman who killed five people and injured two others in a series of shootings in Denver is believed to have targeted the victims based on previous personal and business dealings and was investigated by police twice in the last two years. Denver […]
  • Prince Andrew lawyer seeks to halt US case as accuser ‘lives in Australia’
    Latest News, World
    December 29, 2021
    Prince Andrew’s lawyer has called for the US civil case against the royal over alleged sexual assault to be stopped because his accuser is “actually domiciled in Australia”. Virginia Giuffre is suing the Queen’s son for allegedly assaulting her when […]
  • Russian court orders closure of another human rights group
    Latest News, World
    December 29, 2021
    A Russian court has ordered the closure of the Memorial Human Rights Centre (MHRC), a day after the supreme court revoked the legal status of its sister organisation, Memorial International. Moscow city court authorised the dissolution of the group […]
  • Hong Kong media outlet Stand News to close after police raid
    Latest News, World
    December 29, 2021
    The Hong Kong pro-democracy media outlet Stand News has said it will shut down after police raided its offices earlier in the day and arrested senior staff on suspicion of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications”. “Because of the situation, […]
  • Manipur NPP leader Letpao Haokip joins BJP
    Latest News, National
    December 29, 2021
    Manipur minister and NPP leader Letpao Haokip on Thursday joined the BJP in the presence of Union minister Bhupender Yadav. NPP is BJP’s ally in Manipur and Haokip is the youth affairs and sports minister in the BJP-led government in the state. […]
  • Jharkhand: Rs 25 per litre relief in price of fuel for two wheelers of the poor
    Latest News, National
    December 29, 2021
    Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren Wednesday announced concession of Rs 25 per litre on petrol and diesel prices for two wheelers owned by the poor in the state from Republic Day next year. Soren made the announcement on it on the completion of […]
  • 19-year-old stabbed to death by friend’s father: Kerala Police
    Latest News, National
    December 29, 2021
    A 19-year-old man, who went to meet his friend at her house, was stabbed to death by her father in the wee hours of Wednesday here, police said. Police identified the victim as Aneesh George. He was stabbed to death at the house of Simon Lalu. […]
  • Akhilesh takes Lord Hanuman out on Vijay Yatra
    Latest News, National, Politics
    December 29, 2021
    Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav is on a Rath Yatra to boost his chances to return to power in Uttar Pradesh next year. Rath Yatra holds a special political significance in Uttar Pradesh politics. It was a Rath Yatra by veteran Bharatiya […]
  • Paul Bettany: having Johnny Depp texts read aloud in libel trial was ‘an unpleasant feeling’
    Latest News, World
    December 27, 2021
    The actor Paul Bettany has spoken for the first time about having the text messages exchanged between himself and Johnny Depp concerning Amber Heard read out at Depp’s libel trial. Bettany, who is currently promoting A Very British Scandal, told the […]
  • Russian court increases jail sentence for Gulag historian
    Latest News, World
    December 27, 2021
    A Russian court has increased a jail sentence for the Gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev to a total of 15 years on charges his supporters say are punishment for his work exposing Stalin-era crimes. Supporters say Dmitriyev, 65, is being targeted because […]
  • Jesus statue smashed in spate of attacks on India’s Christian community
    Latest News, World
    December 27, 2021
    Festive celebrations were disrupted, Jesus statues were smashed and effigies of Santa Claus were burned in a spate of attacks on India’s Christian community over Christmas. Amid growing intolerance and violence against India’s Christian minority, […]
  • Jean-Marc Vallée, director of Dallas Buyers Club, Wild and Big Little Lies, dies aged 58
    Latest News, World
    December 27, 2021
    Jean-Marc Vallée, the Canadian director best known for his work on Matthew McConaughey drama Dallas Buyers Club, has died aged 58. Vallée’s representative, Bumble Ward, said he died suddenly over the weekend in his cabin outside Quebec City. His two […]
  • Palma to limit cruise ships after environmental concerns
    Latest News, World
    December 27, 2021
    Officials in the Balearic Islands will seek to limit cruise ships to a maximum of three vessels a day at its largest port, in a deal described as the first of its kind in Spain. The regional government said in a statement that arrivals at Palma in […]
  • Donald Trump golf resorts claimed at least £3.3m in UK furlough support
    Latest News, World
    December 27, 2021
    Donald Trump’s loss-making Scottish golf resorts claimed in excess of £3.3m in emergency support from the UK government, to help furlough staff during the Covid pandemic. Company accounts for the former president’s resorts at Turnberry in Ayrshire […]
  • Afghan ex-BBC journalist stranded for months due to Home Office scheme delays
    Latest News, World
    December 27, 2021
    An Afghan former BBC journalist who managed to flee the Taliban has been stranded in a refugee camp for months because of delays to a resettlement scheme promised by the UK government. Mudassar Kadir* is the only one of 14 former BBC employees to […]
  • England cricket capitulations have gone from car-crash to commonplace
    Latest News, Sports
    December 26, 2021
    Typical: Christmas evening, you turn on the television and it’s another bloody repeat. Although in fairness to England, pick through the dental records of their latest Ashes capitulation and you might just be able to identify a few distinguishing […]
  • Tennis star Denis Shapovalov tests positive for Covid after arriving in Sydney
    Latest News, Sports
    December 26, 2021
    Canadian tennis star Denis Shapovalov has announced he has tested positive for Covid-19 after arriving in Sydney ahead of the Australian Open. The 22-year-old is one of the first overseas players to arrive in Australia and is part of Canada’s team […]

Categories

  • Business (8)
  • Crime (11)
  • Education (1)
  • Health (7)
  • Latest News (396)
  • Lifestyle (6)
  • National (100)
  • Odisha (24)
  • Politics (24)
  • Sports (19)
  • Uncategorized (2)
  • World (209)

© Inter Softech 2021 - All rights reserved. Designed by Inter Softech

MENU
  • Intersoftech
  • World
  • National
  • Business
  • Education
  • Crime
  • Politics
  • Technology
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
Web Design BangladeshBangladesh Online Market