House January 6 committee members were dripping with disdain for Mark Meadows' new book

• The January 6 House select committee on Monday recommended that Mark Meadows be held in contempt.
• During a panel, members of the committee expressed dismay at Meadows' new book, "The Chief's Chief."

Last week, the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows did plenty to upset the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

In federal court, he sued the panel's members and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On Capitol Hill, he was a no-show for a scheduled deposition with the panel.

But as the nine-member House committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend that Meadows be held in contempt of Congress, nothing seemed to peeve the panel's members quite like his newly released memoir. Indeed, as members of the House committee voted against their former colleague, some noted how Meadows' decision to stop cooperating coincided with the rollout of "The Chief's Chief."

"He changed his mind and told us to pound sand. He didn't even show up. Now, this happened the same day his book was published, the same book that goes into detail about matters the select committee is reviewing," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee's chairman. "It also details conversations he had with President Trump and others — conversations we want to hear more about."

With Monday's vote, Meadows became the third former Trump administration official whom the House committee has moved to hold in contempt.

The panel previously took that step against Steve Bannon, whom a grand jury indicted last month on criminal contempt-of-Congress charges over his refusal to cooperate with the investigation.

The committee later voted to hold in contempt Jeff Clark, a former Justice Department official who backed Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud. Clark said on the eve of the vote that he'd invoke his Fifth Amendment rights, and the House committee granted him a second chance to appear and invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination. The full House has held off on referring him to the Justice Department ahead of Clark's scheduled appearance later this week.

In those two previous votes, Thompson and the panel's vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, delivered public remarks from the dais of the House hearing room. But, for Meadows, each member of the House committee spoke ahead of the unanimous vote.

"He can't decline to tell his story to Congress and, on the very same day, publish part of that story in a book to line his pockets," said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who with Cheney is one of two Republicans on the committee. "He can't decline to answer questions on the many non-privileged documents he produced to us. He can't unspeak what he has said and call it privileged after the fact."

Several members of the committee said the book — combined with Meadows' cooperation with the investigation — undercut his claims to privilege.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who is a constitutional-law scholar, said Meadows had already turned over 9,000 pages of records to the committee and "nullified any hypothetical assertions of executive privilege."

"He is refusing to testify about statements he has made in his book, published last week, and in the media about the events of January 6," Raskin said.

Rep. Pete Aguilar, a California Democrat, noted that Meadows spoke about his interactions with Trump just weeks after January 6 during an interview with the Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

Aguilar appeared to bristle at Meadows' more recent television appearances. He noted that, on December 7, Meadows' lawyer told the committee an appearance before the panel was "untenable."

"Something else happened last Tuesday. 'The Chief's Chief' hit the bookstores," Aguilar said.

"He'll share details about his interactions with the former president with Laura Ingraham. He'll share the details with Sean Hannity. He'll share details with anyone who will shell out $25 for his book. But in the face of a lawful subpoena from the select committee, as we work to get answers for the American people, the only thing Mr. Meadows will share are his excuses," the California Democrat added.

"We don't accept his excuses. He must be held accountable."