Mark Meadows texts latest: House to debate contempt of Congress resolution against Trump aide

The House is now debating bicameral legislation on the Uyghur Forced LaborPrevention Act, which would ban the importation of goods made with forced labor in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.

A House version of the bill passed last week.

In a statement on Tuesday night, press secretary Jen Psaki said “the president welcomes the agreement by Congress on the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.”

“We agree with Congress that action can and must be taken to hold the People’s Republic of China accountable for genocide and human rights abuses and to address forced labor in Xinjiang,” she said. “The Administration will work closely with Congress to implement this bill to ensure global supply chains are free of forced labor, while simultaneously working to on-shore and third-shore key supply chains, including semiconductors and clean energy.”

A vote on the contempt resolution for former Trump aide Mark Meadows is expected after debate ends.

A federal judge has cleared the way for Congress to acquire Donald Trump’s tax returns from during much of his time in the White House.

The ruling rejected a lawsuit from the former president seeking to block the Treasury Department from handing over the records, which Mr Trump had argued would amount to political persecution.

Congress is owed “great deference” when making oversight requests, and Mr Trump was “wrong on the law,” wrote Washington DC district judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, in his decision on Tuesday.

Before the House votes on the contempt of Congress resolution, lawmakers debated legislation to monitor and combat Islamophobia, authored by US Reps Ilhan Omar and Jan Schakowsky as the Combating International Islamophobia Act.

The measure calls for the US Department of State to create an office headed by a special envoy to be appointed by the president. The office would then record Islamophobic incidents, including attacks and threats against Muslims and places of worship, schools and other centres.

Speaking in opposition to the measure, US Rep Scott Perry accused Rep Omar – among one of two Muslim women in Congress – of being affiliated with “terrorist organisations”. House Democrats objected to the comments and have asked his remarks to be removed from the proceedings.

Rep Omar has been at the centre of anti-Muslim right-wing attacks, most recently from far-right US Rep Lauren Boebert, who suggested in speeches to her constituents that she was mistaken for a terrorist at the US Capitol.

Trump lawyer John Eastman has sued Verizon and the House committee investigation the Capitol riot to block the release of phone records sought by the committee.

Eastman, who represented the president in attempts to overturn election results and drafted memos arguing Mike Pence’s authority to reject them, previously said he plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination with the committee. He was summoned in a subpoena for a deposition and to turn over documents.

The chairman of the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot has warned that Trump loyalists could run out the clock ahead of the chamber’s vote to hold former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress.

Committee chair Bennie Thompson told The Independent off the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday that “we didn’t get all the information we wanted, we tried to negotiate with him, it didn’t work out.”

“And so for our purposes, what we can do with the contempt vote, is just pass it on to the Department of Justice,” he said.

But with this being the second contempt vote the House has had, it is entirely possible that other Trump administration officials could follow Meadows and Steve Bannon, who was indicted for contempt by the Justice Department after the committee’s resolution.

“We’ll see what happens when that time comes, but I think anytime you bring senior people who worked in the administration in one capacity or another – one who used to, one who did before the change of the administration – I don’t know how high you can get beyond that,” Thompson told The Independent.

Fox News host Brett Baier reports that Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham will be addressing their texts to Mark Meadows “in depth” on the network tonight.

They have since downplayed the president’s role in the attack and turned their ire to Democrats for the investigation.

The House of Representatives has closed debate ahead of a vote on whether to refer criminal contempt of Congress charges to the US Department of Justice for former Trump chief of staff and former congressman Mark Meadows.

He is the second-ever congressman to face contempt charges from his own colleagues, and the second former Trump aide to face them in connection with the select committee’s probe into the events surrounding the Capitol insurrection, after Steve Bannon refused to appear before the committee.

The committee voted to support the resolution on Monday night. Here’s what happened:

In closing remarks before a vote, Republican US Rep Liz Cheney criticised her colleagues who recognised the assault on democracy for what it was “yet now they are defending the indefensible,” she said.

“President Trump is hiding behind executive privilege,” she said. “How we handle Jan 6 is the moral test of our generation.”

Moments earlier, GOP congressman said the select committee investigating the attack is “not interested in doing anything to prevent something like Jan 6 from happening again.”

“It’s all about burying their political opponents,” he said.

In 2018, Mark Meadows complained about deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein ignoring subpoenas for information about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference.

In an interview with Fox News, Mr Meadows said: “For nine months we’ve asked for documents, and that’s all we want – the documents. And what we’ve found is, not only have subpoenas been ignored but information has been hidden, the efforts have been stonewalled.”

Rep Jim Banks characterised the January 6 select committee as shrouded in secrecy during remarks on Tuesday in the debate over Mr Meadows’s contempt resolution.

His remarks came without the obvious caveat that Republicans were offered the chance to participate before House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy withdrew all of his GOP nominees to the committee in protest.

“For the first time in history, Democrats have complete control over a Select Committee. I hope the American people are paying close attention. I hope they see what happens when Democrats get total power. They abuse it. They intimidate, they threaten, and they harass. They try to jail their political opponents,” Mr Banks argued.

“They don’t care about fairness or due process. The point isn’t cooperation, nor fact-finding. They care about punishment. The point is prosecution,” he continued.

A significant number of Republicans have attempted to diminish accounts of the severity of the attack on the Capitol, even despite the deaths among members of Capitol Police resulting from it.