Page 587 - Contempt News Today

Committee will meet tomorrow to decide whether to indict jeffrey clark for criminal contempt of congress and whether to prosecute him. he refused to answer questions about former president trumps efforts to use the department to help overturn the 2020 election. it made no mention whether mark meadows would be charged with contempt. meanwhile the committee has a full slate of depositions scheduled this week, including from former white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany. its unclear how many ...

Recommend a committee referral tore congress. katie is an msnbc contributor. jeffrey clark is someone no one has really heard about before. to the extent there was a mastermind of a clown car dumpster fire insurrection attempt, he was it. hes important for them to hear from. what happens now? >> sure, so theyre going to vote to hold him in contempt and it will go to the justice department. its very likely the justice department will look at the case, and much like in the situation with steve ban...

What do we know about that and about mark meadows and also what does contempt of congress actually mean? all ive done is watch a lot of law and order. when someone is held in contempt, that is bad news. but contempt of congress doesnt seem to affect any of these peoples lives. >> and the larger point is that the reason that they want to make sure that these people are complying is because the committee wants the information and insight that these people can give them. so going forward in the con...

Yet or not handed over the documents that youve requested? it sounds like theres been a lot of resistance encouraged by president trump. what puts you in the same boat as bannon in terms of this could be potentially criminal contempt? >> mr. clark is in a small group that has continued to stonewall us. hes not produced any documents. he came to the deposition but refused to answer questions and exerted both executive privilege and attorney/client privilege, which is a little confusing, and so we...

Action. they found out that the committee would pursue a contempt charge again. a lot of us wondered why meadows was not on that list, and now we know in fact he has been responsive to at least some degree. >> yes, and i think youre right to point out steve bannon being in contempt. you have studied and reported on former president trump and his orbit, do you think he would have made this decision? >> thats right, he has stayed in contact and it is hard to imagine him ds suiciding to take

Which is one of the reasons he would show up to the committee and say, i plead the fifth. i want to honor my agreement with the former president. >> so the committee is looking to go after him. strangely, not after mark meadows, who is a former congressman, former head of the freedom caucus and the former chief of staff to the president. any reason why? >> well, im not really sure why they chose to hold jeff clark in contempt before mark meadows. i cant say, i dont know whats going on in heads o...

Have to ask him answered. meadows attorney says he hopes the committee will continue to respect meadows claims of privilege and will essentially ask him questions he can answer. so, hallie, its pretty clear here the committee wont get everything they want. as to whether the threat of contempt here moved meadows, its hard to say for sure. he certainly would have more to lose by being charged ultimately with contempt than say steve bannon. meadows is out promoting a book right now. he may want to ...

With contempt. they will take it before a grand jury and if the grand jury indites, he will be charged. theres really no reason not to. the justice department has fired former officials who worked with jeff clark already testified before the committee. both the senate and the house. all of the things that they would want to talk to him about, almost all of them have been covered by former officials. could be very hard for him to say that he couldnt speak to these things. because the former presi...

Investigators in negotiating the terms, turning over documents, but the pace had the committee weighing more aggressive measures against him. is his cooperation a sign that enforcing these subpoenas with threats of contempt is actually working? >> i think it does and thats what weve heard from this committee all along. theyve said in the wake of steve bannons indictment the doj decided to prosecute the criminal contempt case against him earlier this month, that they thought it had achieved its g...

Evidence. now, its a temporary, temporary win-win here because it looked like we were headed towards a potential contempt vote and contempt prosecution of meadows. now, the committee at least gets some information out of meadows. some is better than none, and meadows avoids the possibility of being federally indicted which to most non-steve bannon people is a good thing. however, the big question is, how initial will this initial cooperation be? what happens when the committee starts asking mark...