(WASHINGTON) — Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows wants a court to resolve former President Donald Trump’s claims of executive privilege before he cooperates with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

This comes after the White House notified Meadows’ attorney in a letter obtained by ABC News that President Joe Biden has no plans to assert executive privilege over testimony or documents.

“President Biden recognizes the importance of candid advice in the discharge of the President’s constitutional responsibilities and believes that, in appropriate cases, executive privilege should be asserted to protect former senior White House staff from having to testify about conversations concerning the President’s exercise of the duties of his office,” said the letter from deputy White House counsel Jonathan Su to lawyer George Terwilliger. “But in recognition of these unique and extraordinary circumstances, where Congress is investigating an effort to obstruct the lawful transfer of power under our Constitution, President Biden has already determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the public interest, and is therefore not justified, with respect to particular subjects within the purview of the Select Committee.”

Su also writes that Biden has determined he will not assert immunity to “preclude your client from testifying before the Select Committee.”

Terwilliger said in a statement to ABC News that “it now appears the courts will have to resolve this conflict.”

“Contrary to decades of consistent bipartisan opinions from the Justice Department that senior aides cannot be compelled by Congress to give testimony, this is the first President to make no effort whatsoever to protect presidential communications from being the subject of compelled testimony,” Terwilliger said. “Mr. Meadows remains under the instructions of former President Trump to respect longstanding principles of executive privilege. It now appears the courts will have to resolve this conflict.”

Meadows was first subpoenaed on Sept. 23 and has since been in talks with the committee through his lawyer on the extent to which he will cooperate with its probe. But sources familiar with the committee’s dealings say there has been growing frustration over the lack of progress regarding Meadows’ potential cooperation.

In a letter Thursday night, the committee threatened to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress if he doesn’t appear for a deposition before the committee on Friday.

“Simply put, there is no valid legal basis for Mr. Meadows’s continued resistance to the Select Committee’s subpoena. As such, the Select Committee expects Mr. Meadows to produce all responsive documents and appear for deposition testimony tomorrow, November 12, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. If there are specific questions during that deposition that you believe raise legitimate privilege issues, Mr. Meadows should state them at that time on the record for the Select Committee’s consideration and possible judicial review,” the letter reads.

“The Select Committee will view Mr. Meadows’s failure to appear at the deposition, and to produce responsive documents or a privilege log indicating the specific basis for withholding any documents you believe are protected by privilege, as willful non-compliance,” it continues. “Such willful non- compliance with the subpoena would force the Select Committee to consider invoking the contempt of Congress procedures in 2 U.S.C. §§ 192, 194—which could result in a referral from the House of Representatives to the Department of Justice for criminal charges—as well as the possibility of having a civil action to enforce the subpoena brought against Mr. Meadows in his personal capacity.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A group of House Democrats have announced that on Friday they will formally introduce a measure to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., for tweeting an edited Japanese cartoon showing him stabbing President Joe Biden and killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

Gosar on Monday tweeted the message, “any anime fans out there?” with what appeared to be an edited clip of the Japanese cartoon series “Attack on Titan,” in which the main characters fight off giants trying to exterminate humanity.

The edited clip of the show’s opening credits depict Gosar and other GOP lawmakers flying through the air and stabbing giants with the faces of Biden and Ocasio-Cortez, in between images of Border Patrol officers with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Gosar was immediately condemned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats, some of whom called for his expulsion from Congress and charged him with glorifying violence against the prominent Democrats.

Pelosi tweeted on Tuesday, “Threats of violence against Members of Congress and the President of the United States must not be tolerated. @GOPLeader should join in condemning this horrific video and call on the Ethics Committee and law enforcement to investigate.”

“For a Member of Congress to post a manipulated video on his social media accounts depicting himself killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden is a clear cut case for censure,” Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., and other Democrats co-sponsoring her resolution wrote in a statement on Wednesday.

“For that Member to post such a video on his official Instagram account and use his official congressional resources in the House of Representatives to further violence against elected officials goes beyond the pale.”

Ocasio-Cortez also denounced House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for not publicly criticizing Gosar’s actions. Aides to the California Republican did not respond to a message from ABC News seeking comment on the video.

Gosar eventually took down the tweet and video Tuesday night, after Twitter placed a public interest notice on the post. He said the video produced by his office was meant to “symbolize the battle for the soul of America” and was “in no way intended to be a targeted attack against” the Democrats.

“The cartoon depicts the symbolic nature of a battle between lawful and unlawful policies and in no way intended to be a targeted attack against Representative Cortez or Mr. Biden,” Gosar said in a statement.

“It is a symbolic cartoon. It is not real life. Congressman Gosar cannot fly. The hero of the cartoon goes after the monster, the policy monster of open borders. I will always fight to defend the rule of law, securing our borders, and the America First agenda,” the statement said.

If the censure resolution is taken up by the full House and approved by a majority of lawmakers present and voting, Gosar could be forced to stand in the center of the House chamber as the resolution condemning his actions are read aloud.

It’s not yet clear if the House will take action against Gosar, who has courted controversy for spreading conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and appearing at a white nationalist event last winter — though he distanced himself from the main organizer and his comments.

Twenty-three members of Congress have been censured for misconduct, according to a 2016 Congressional Research Service Report.

Former Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., was the last member of Congress to be censured — in December 2010 — accused of nearly a dozen ethics violations.

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(WASHINGTON) — An appeals court has put a temporary pause on the handover of records from the Trump White House to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

A three-judge panel in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday granted a request from former President Donald Trump’s legal team for a temporary injunction to block the exchange of records from the National Archives to the committee, which was set to take place Friday, and scheduled a Nov. 30 hearing to hear arguments from all parties in the case.

Trump sued the committee and the National Archives last month, asserting executive privilege over a broad swath of documents the national archivist had identified as relevant to the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the subsequent attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A district court judge this week twice denied Trump’s request to block or delay the release of the documents, ruling that President Joe Biden’s decision to not assert privilege over the materials outweighed Trump’s efforts to do so as a private citizen.

“[Trump’s] position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power ‘exists in perpetuity,'” district judge Tanya Chutkan said in her ruling. “But Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”

It’s unclear how the temporary delay might affect the work of the Jan. 6 committee. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, has previously said he hopes the committee’s investigation could conclude by early next year.

According to the national archivist, the first tranche of documents that were set to be handed over on Friday included daily presidential diaries, call logs, White House appointments that occurred around Jan. 6, and three handwritten notes from the files of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, among other documents.

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