US President Joe Biden has stated that in his opinion, Trump's last chief of staff Mark Meadows was "worthy" of being held in contempt by Congress after he refused to testify to the House 6 January committee.
At the same time, Biden admitted that he hadn't read the communications that Meadows voluntarily handed over to the House committee, but maintained his position regarding holding the man in contempt.
The communications that Meadows provided showed that several Fox News hosts and the president's eldest son Donald Trump Jr. pleaded with the then-White House chief of staff to convince Trump to make a statement on 6 January. They insisted that POTUS should condemn the violence at the Capitol and thus attempt to quell it. Trump criticised the violent mob that stormed the Congress building and called on them to stay peaceful.
Biden has already in the past said that, in his opinion, those who refuse to cooperate with the 6 January committee should be held in contempt. Meadows is not the first person whom the House committee has referred to the Department of Justice in order to file charges against. Previously, it has done so with Trump's former aide Steve Bannon. The DoJ moved forward with a criminal contempt charge against him, but Bannon insists that he refused to testify based on legal advice from his attorney.
Even though Meadows did not resist handing over his phone communications to the 6 January committee, he refused to show up and testify. The Department of Justice is yet to decide whether or not to follow up on the congressional referral of criminal contempt case against the former White House chief of staff.
The House 6 January committee was established by the Democrats with the declared goal of investigating the aspects and origins of the unrest at the Capitol on the day of the certification of the 2020 election results. However, former President Donald Trump decried it as an "unselect committee" whose only purpose is to wage another "witch hunt" against him.