With public hearings coming soon from the House committee investigating Jan. 6, the Department of Justice has decided not to charge two key figures with contempt of Congress for refusing to honor subpoenas. Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino are apparently off the hook despite refusing a legally binding obligation to tell Congress what they know about an attack on America’s democracy — an attack that continues to pose a threat.
Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury in November for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee. On Friday, former White House adviser Peter Navarro was indicted as well. But Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department said Friday it won’t pursue charges against Meadows and Scavino — even though, like Bannon and Navarro, they have both ignored legally issued subpoenas.
The official Justice Department explanation is that each decision of whether to pursue indictment was based upon “the individual facts and circumstances of their alleged contempt.” That’s unacceptably vague. In a joint statement the committee’s top leaders, Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, and Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, called the decision “to reward Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino for their continued attack on the rule of law puzzling” and sought “greater clarity” from the Justice Department on the decision.
