Mark Meadows Now Refusing to Sit for Deposition with January 6 Committee

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Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is now refusing to sit for a deposition with the House Select Committee tasked with investigating the events of January 6. The move marks a reversal from an announcement last week that he would comply with the committee’s subpoena ordering him to appear.

“We agreed to provide thousands of pages of responsive documents and Mr. Meadows was willing to appear voluntarily, not under compulsion of the Select Committee’s subpoena to him, for a deposition to answer questions about non-privileged matters. Now actions by the Select Committee have made such an appearance untenable,” George J. Terwilliger III, an attorney for Meadows, wrote in the letter obtained by CNN.

“In short, we now have every indication from the information supplied to us last Friday – upon which Mr. Meadows could expect to be questioned – that the Select Committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning Executive Privilege,” he added, noting that Meadows is still willing to answer written questions.

“Nonetheless, as we have before, we reiterate our willingness to consider an interrogatory process of Select Committee written questions and answers from Mr. Meadows so that there might be both an orderly process and a clear record of questions and related assertions of privilege where appropriate,” Terwilliger wrote.

Members of the select committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump and his allies have insisted for months that they have the right to exert executive privilege to resist cooperating with the House Select Committee.

Last week, Representative Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said the committee expects to win the Trump executive privilege lawsuit.

“We expect a positive result. Our goal is to produce a document, gather as much information as possible in those documents from the national archives that will help tell the story of January 5th and January 6th, rallies and insurrection, and assault on democracy. The more information, the better. That’s why these documents are so important,” he said at the time.