GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger says he's 'not confident' that Mark Meadows has turned over all relevant documents to the January 6 committee
- Kinzinger said he's 'not confident' that Meadows has given all relevant documents to the Jan. 6 panel.
- The House voted to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress for failing to testify before the panel.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Sunday said he wasn't fully assured that former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had turned over all relevant documents to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.
During an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation," the Illinois Republican told guest host John Dickerson that he didn't think Meadows has fully presented the information that the panel wants to review.
"I'm not confident that Meadows has handed over everything at all," he said. "He was cooperating with us for a little bit, but in an attempt to make Donald Trump happy, he stopped cooperating."
He continued: "We gave him plenty of space to come back to resume that. He has not. And in fact, he's waived executive privilege a thousand times by presenting us with what he already has."
The congressman's comments come after The Washington Post and CNN recently obtained 29 text messages exchanged between Meadows and conservative activist Ginni Thomas, the wife of Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, that spoke of the "fight" to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The House of Representatives last year voted to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress after he dismissed requests to testify before the committee. Meadows initially stated that he would comply with the panel's queries, but reversed his decision.
Meadows turned over thousands of critical correspondences from his time at the White House, which could reveal some of what happened in Trump's orbit while the Capitol was being attacked. But Kinzinger — in his role on the panel — could not speak to the Meadows-Thomas text messages that were published last week.
The congressman went on to say that Meadows lacked respect for the very legislative body where he once served as a member from North Carolina from 2013 to 2020 by apparently withholding those texts.
"I'm not convinced he's handed over everything to us, and that's why it's in the DOJ's [Department of Justice's] hands now whether to prosecute him for contempt," he said.
He added: "He has contempt not just for Congress, for his old institution of Congress, and thereby for the American people. I hope DOJ does the right thing, and I hope we get all the information ... the American people deserve these answers."