department has certain powers and abilities that they lack. remember, they work they are a congressional investigation. they re legislators. they re not federal prosecutors. they don t have the power to throw anybody in jail, to put anybody in handcuffs. and they can t really even threaten to do that. but the justice department certainly can. so, i think many of these witnesses may well treat a subpoena from the justice department differently than a subpoena from a legislative branch. and so and we ve even seen the justice department subpoena some of the same witnesses that have already testified before the committee. and in fact, get some rulings that pierce some of the privilege assertions that some of the witnesses made before the january 6th committee. so, i do think, if they put their full effort into an investigation, they can easily go beyond what congress has done here. and the congressional investigation was very robust. yeah. that is saying something to go
obviously, mr. meadows did not comply with his obligation to come in. you can t just say i m not coming in. you have a privilege. you have to assert it, question by question and then we can make a determination. on the other hand, he was the chief of staff, so the privilege assertions are more complicated than mr. bannon, who was not even a federal employee. so, we are hopeful that the doj will proceed. meanwhile, we are getting information about mr. meadows activity from other sources in a position to know. alex jones went public monday with the fact that he testified under oath to the committee on monday on his show, he talked about it. and he said that he took the fifth amendment about 100 times. and he said that he knew what the answers were for about half of those questions. you can t just throw the fifth
chief of staff, so the privilege assertions are more complicated than mr. bannon, who was not even a federal employee. so, we are hopeful that the doj will proceed. meanwhile, we are getting information about mr. meadows activity from other sources in a position to know. alex jones went public monday with the fact that he testified under oath to the committee on monday on his show, he talked about it. and he said that he took the fifth amendment about 100 times. and he said that he knew what the answers were for about half of those questions. you can t just throw the fifth amendment around. there has to be a legitimate concern that the answer to the question could expose you to criminal charges. was it your sense that the fifth amendment was being used properly in this case and that,
cooperate on those matters. that alone is sufficient to advance the referral. but for the sake of argument, let s talk about mr. meadows privilege assertions. the select committee is not able to assess whether mr. meadows is making those assertions in good faith because he won t even come in and address them on a question by question basis as required. i have my view of whether he made these claims in good faith because i ve seen him on television talking about his conversations with the president and promoting his book. i understand that this is a difficult matter. i have no great desire to be here seeking consideration of this contempt referral. mr. meadows was a colleague for more than seven years. but that doesn t excuse his behavior. if anything, his time as a member of the house should make him more aware of the potential