Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows joined Fox News host Sean Hannity Monday in denouncing the House select committee investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, with Hannity repeatedly calling it a “sham” and Meadows insisting the bipartisan probe is all about “going after” former President Donald Trump. Despite all of Meadows’ denials and avoidance tactics, he’s right on that point: It is about Trump. It’s about the president’s overt efforts to foment insurrection and his refusal, for 3 hours and 7 minutes, to tell the rioters to stand down.
And it’s about determining whether the Trump White House helped plan the attack with collaboration by pro-Trump members of Congress.
Forcing Meadows to testify is essential to determine who conspired in a deadly attempt to subvert democracy. So, yes, it is about Trump.
Despite Meadows’ protests, he has no credible claim of executive privilege, having just published a book in which he reveals all kinds of privileged information from his White House days. Meadows also has already cooperated with the House committee, having released messages sent by prominent Fox News personalities and even Donald Trump Jr. begging Meadows to intervene with the president.
Perhaps more to the legal point about executive privilege: It doesn’t extend to former presidents, and President Joe Biden has already declined to invoke it on Trump’s behalf. Two separate court rulings have rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege regarding Jan. 6. So Meadows’ refusal to appear before the committee absolutely deserved to land him in contempt of Congress, which the House voted to hold him in Tuesday.
Meadows’ appearance on Hannity’s show was doubly curious for the host’s own avoidance of any accountability for his frantic efforts — along with hosts Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade — to encourage Trump’s intervention.
On Monday’s show, Hannity went to such lengths to denigrate the select committee’s work that he ran a headline across the bottom of the screen calling it a “sham.”
But at the time, the invasion was anything but a sham for Hannity.
He messaged Meadows to urge the president to stop it. “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.”
Ingraham, who has been particularly vitriolic in attacking the select committee, warned Meadows on Jan. 6: “Mark, the president needs to tell these people in the Capitol to go home. He is destroying his legacy.” Ingraham certainly seemed to be suggesting in her message that Trump bore culpability by refusing to intervene.
Even Trump’s son joined in the chorus of urgent appeals to the president. “He’s got to condemn this sh— ASAP,” Trump Jr. texted to Meadows.
Yet, amazingly, the same chorus is now singing that Jan. 6 was much ado about nothing. Their hypocrisy underscores why the select committee’s work is so vital in communicating the truth to the American public and bringing any White House and congressional conspirators to justice for their roles.