According to people familiar with the situation, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has complied with a subpoena from the Justice Department's investigation into the circumstances surrounding January 6, 2021, making him the highest-ranking Trump official known to have done so.
According to a source, Meadows complied with the demands of the Justice Department subpoena and supplied the same materials to the House select committee looking into the attack on the US Capitol.
Before ceasing to cooperate last year, Meadows provided the House committee with thousands of texts and emails. Though he omitted hundreds of texts, invoking executive privilege, they provide a glimpse into his interactions at the White House and were included among the texts he handed over between Election Day 2020 and Joe Biden's inauguration that CNN previously obtained.Another person with knowledge of the situation told CNN that in addition to Meadows' senior deputy in the White House, Ben Williamson, a grand jury subpoena was recently served. Similar subpoenas were issued to people who were close to Trump. It requested testimony and documents pertaining to January 6 and initiatives to void the 2020 election. Williamson earlier gave the January 6 committee his cooperation. To CNN, he declined to respond.According to CNN this week, Meadows' compliance with the subpoena comes as the Justice Department has intensified its investigation into January 6, which now covers almost every aspect of former President Donald Trump's attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss, including the fraudulent electors plot, attempts to push baseless election fraud claims, and how money flowed to support these various efforts.
Meadows's lawyer declined to comment. Requests for comment from CNN went unanswered by the Justice Department.
At least 30 subpoenas have been served by federal investigators on people with ties to Trump, including top fundraisers and former campaign staff.
While serving as the White House's chief of staff in the two months between Election Day and Biden's inauguration, Meadows was at the center of Trump's attempts to rig the results. According to text texts that Meadows provided to the House select committee and that CNN was able to get, Meadows engaged in communication with multiple authorities who sought to uncover electoral fraud and promoted various plans to attempt to rescind the results. As Trump attempted to seek the DOJ's assistance in his quest to claim the election was stolen from him, Meadows also discussed illogical conspiracy ideas with leaders of the Justice Department.
Meadows was sent to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress after he ceased assisting the House committee. Earlier this year, the DOJ decided not to charge him for contempt.
As part of the current criminal investigation, it is not yet known whether the Justice Department will ask Meadows for further documents. If so, this might result in a court dispute over executive privilege.Meadows turned over emails and texts from his tenure in the administration that he had not yet turned over to the National Archives after last month's FBI search of Trump's Florida home and resort, CNN previously reported. The materials Trump brought to Mar-a-Lago that the National Archives wanted back were the topic of Meadows' conversation with Trump last year.
According to a report by CNN last month, Meadows has been advised to stop communicating with Trump, and some of Trump's legal counsel are worried that if Meadows is pressured into cooperating, he would end up as a fact witness. Nevertheless, a source acquainted with their relationship said that Trump and Meadows have spoken on several occasions.
Even though Trump has grumbled about Meadows to others, according to another source, their connection has continued despite being "not the same as it once was" while in the White House.
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