This story is just now breaking. Here are facts which are currently available. Scott McFarlane is an investigative reporter for NBC News.
Civil complaint has not been posted yet
Standby
(I'm going to bloody my fingers refreshing the court PACER document filing system … checking for a copy of the suit)
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) December 8, 2021
I found a link to the lawsuit. Here it is. He’s filing for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief from the subpoenas, which means he doesn’t want to appear before the J6 Committee. That we knew.
The lawsuit is impossible to cut and paste from that link. Go in and read it. I’ll be back with an update when I find a readable copy or a good synopsis from some commentator.
This is the bombshell du jour.
UPDATE 5:00 p.m. PST
Meadows is arguing that he’s being “coerced.” New York Times:
Mr. Meadows’s suit came hours after the committee said it would move forward with a criminal contempt of Congress referral against Mr. Meadows after he refused to appear for a scheduled deposition.
His lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, accuses the committee of issuing “two overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoenas” against him, including one sent to Verizon for his phone and text data.
“Mr. Meadows faces the harm of both being illegally coerced into violating the Constitution,” his lawsuit contends. It asks a judge to declare the subpoenas “unlawful and unenforceable,” and claims the inquiries violate his constitutional rights to free speech and privacy. […]
Mr. Meadows joins Mr. Trump is suing the committee to try to block its investigation. The former president is battling in court to prevent the release of documents requested by the committee that he says are subject to executive privilege, though the Biden administration has refused to assert that claim.
Mr. Meadows, who has turned over thousands of pages of documents to the committee, informed the panel on Tuesday that he was no longer willing to sit for a deposition that had been scheduled for Wednesday, reversing a deal he had reached with the panel just last week to be interviewed by its investigators. The leaders of the committee immediately threatened to charge Mr. Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina, with contempt of Congress if he did not appear. […]
Mr. Thompson said Mr. Meadows had provided some useful information to the committee, including a November email that discussed appointing an alternate slate of electors to keep Mr. Trump in power and a Jan. 5 message about putting the National Guard on standby. […]
“There is no legitimate legal basis for Mr. Meadows to refuse to cooperate with the select committee and answer questions about the documents he produced, the personal devices and accounts he used, the events he wrote about in his newly released book and, among other things, his other public statements,” Mr. Thompson wrote.
The committee recently sent a flurry of subpoenas to telecommunications companies seeking the data of dozens of individuals, including Mr. Meadows, prompting his lawyer to object to a request he said sought “intensely personal communications” with no relevance to any legitimate investigation. […]
“The Verizon subpoena seeks Mr. Meadows’ cellphone metadata, despite the fact that he has already provided the select committee with his responsive text messages, emails, and the metadata,” his lawsuit states.
The subpoenas, which follow records preservation demands sent to 35 technology and social media companies in August, do not seek the content of any communications but simply the dates and times of when the calls and messages took place, according to a committee aide.
People with nothing to hide don’t run, now do they? This is going to get very ugly, methinks. All the signs are there.
The contempt citation will be for *criminal* contempt. Also, because he has a book, and he did a deposition, it’s going to be a bit harder for him to get relief.
He’s been hanging out with Trump for too long. Doesn’t he realize that if his suit is accepted then he’s opened himself up to DISCOVERY? If he refuses to show up for, or answer questions put to him in a deposition(s) there’s no waiting around. The lawyers go straight to the judge and request an order to comply or be held in contempt. That can lead to his cooling his ass in jail and he’ll not like that one bit. I suspect that like Trump he will drop it as soon as he’s contacted about a deposition. Oh, he’ll huff and puff and make a scene on right wing news outlets believing Speaker Pelosi will be intimidated into backing down. I was about to say I’d like some of whatever he’s been smoking but it’s probably dried up Trump turds shaped like cigars. Because what he’s doing is that fucking stupid.
Friendly reminder: he did all this AFTER turning over evidence that they now know and can link up to testimony/documents they already have. As distinguished failures of the Trump administration goes, he’s currently giving Bannon a run for his money…and the latter managed to lose his job in the WH, the backing of the Mercers and shortly his freedom.
That’s a novel concept.
Who was the biggest failure of the Trump administration?
Har tis attorney ever even heard the term “standing to sue”? I don’t think anyone who is being criminally charges can file a civil lawsuit to get out of that. Habeas corpus if they had lim physiclly locked up without chargeing him … which they don’t. No one is persecuting him … only prosecuting him (for damned good cause) – the two verbs are not the same.
I did not hear these ‘pubes whining when it was Muslims’ phone records being grabbed up by U.S. authorities. What this rube participated in was as much a terrorist act as what happened on Sept. 11th. I guess when you’re a white male though….