Simple question vis-à-vis the January 6 House Select
Committee inquiry vs. Trump, et al resistance to participating: “Why are they
afraid of the truth?”
Great reporting from NY
Daily News with this headline:
“Former Trump aides ‘engaging’ with January 6 committee as Bannon
defies subpoena”
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and another
aide (Kash Patel) are “engaging” with the Congressional committee on the
storming of the Capitol in a possible break with Trump who wants them to
stonewall the panel.
The committee’s leaders said Meadows and Patel have shown
signs of cooperating with a demand for documents and eventual testimony about
the failed insurrection.
Steve Bannon, the one-time White House political supremo, has told the committee he will defy its subpoenas, leaving him vulnerable to criminal prosecution.
Bannon is citing Trump’s orders as a reason for not
playing ball with the panel. His lawyer told the committee he would defy the
subpoena until the privilege issue “is resolved.”
The Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and ranking
Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said in a joint statement: “The Select
Committee welcomes good-faith engagement with witnesses seeking to cooperate
with our investigation. We will not allow any witness to defy a lawful subpoena
or attempt to run out the clock.”
It was not immediately clear what the extent of the cooperation offered by Meadows and Patel to the committee has been or what steps Trump might take to stop them.
The fourth Trump aide, former White House
social media director Dan Scavino, was also expected to be hit with a subpoena,
but it had been hard to track him down. However, with this late breaking story, he was served
his subpoena today (October 8).
Trump’s lawyers have warned all four former aides not to
cooperate in any way with the panel, claiming
executive privilege.
However, most legal experts say that privilege claim has little merit, because it can generally only be asserted by the sitting president.
The claim seems particularly weak with
regard to Bannon, who had long since left the White House by the time of the
January 6 riot.
Note these two updates on that aspect of this story:
1. President Biden says no to Trump request
for executive privilege covered here (CNN).
2. Also covered here (Washington
Post).
The committee insists it needs to hear from the aides to help it get to the bottom of what happened on January 6 and Trump’s role in the attack.
On Friday afternoon (as noted above), the White House announced that
President Biden will not block a tranche of documents sought by a House
committee’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol,
setting up a showdown with former President Donald Trump, who has pledged to
try to keep records from his time in the White House from being turned over to
investigators.
White House counsel Dana Remus
wrote in a letter to the government’s archivist that Biden has determined that
invoking executive privilege “is not in the best interests of the United
States.”
White House spokeswoman
Jen Psaki said President Biden believes “It’s of the utmost importance that Congress and
the American people have the fullest picture possible of what happened that
day.”
The committee in August asked for a trove of records,
including communication within the White House under Trump and information
about planning and funding for the January 6 rally at which Trump urged his
supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn the results of the election that
Biden won.
My 2 Cents: Not much to add to this fine rundown above except to
say with all that we all have seen, read, heard, and know about the
overwhelming evidence piled up against Trump and a few close to him re: the
January 6 insurrection, the only the key question remaining is simple: When
will he be prosecuted, tried, and jailed? For surely he needs to be post haste.
The House January 6 Select
Committee seems to be the proverbial icing on the cake – hopefully soon, too,
and BTW: They are doing a fantastic job under Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson
(D-MS) and ranking GOP member Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).
As always, stay tuned, and
thanks for stopping by.
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