Mark Meadows is going through some things
It was never particularly difficult to figure out why Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows refused to cooperate with the January 6th Committee: Bannon is reportedly under criminal investigation in New York, while Meadows is reportedly under criminal investigation in Georgia, and they surely feared further incriminating themselves in those probes if they cooperated with the committee. Nor was it difficult to figure out that the DOJ was going to indict Bannon for contempt, once the committee made a criminal referral against him. But now comes the interesting part, and it involves Meadows.
On Thursday, Meadows formally refused the committee’s demands to testify, under threat of a criminal referral. Meadows isn’t stupid (at least not that kind of stupid), so he had to know that Bannon’s indictment was coming, and that he would also end up indicted if he failed to comply.
But now Bannon has actually been indicted. He’s about to be taken into custody. He’ll be arrested, booked, arraigned, and begin the ugly process of heading toward a trial date. The question is what impact this has on Meadows.
Will the imagery of Bannon going down end up scaring Meadows into changing his mind at the last minute and cooperating? Sometimes criminals honestly believe they’re going to magically get away with it all, no matter how obvious it becomes that they won’t, right up until the moment the arrests begin.
Mark Meadows now faces two bad choices. He can cave and quickly give the January 6th Committee his full cooperation in the hope of avoiding federal criminal indictment for contempt, while trying to avoid further incriminating himself in Georgia in the process. Or he can do nothing and get federally indicted and arrested for contempt, and probably also end up indicted in Georgia anyway. Meadows is going through some things.
