A Democratic Congressman during a meeting of the House Rules Committee on Tuesday warned that Mark Meadows may invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to protect against charges of “treason.”
U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) told his fellow Rules Committee members “there’s a pledge of allegiance to Donald Trump above and beyond the Constitution here, which really is frightening,” he said, referring to Meadows, the former president’s White House chief of staff, “which is why I think that we’re going to see the Fifth Amendment being pled,” Perlmutter added, as The Independent reports.
The House Rules Committee is considering the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack’s 51-page report asking for the Dept. of Justice to prosecute Meadows for criminal contempt of Congress. The Select Committee voted unanimously Monday evening to send that report tom the full House for a vote, which likely will take place today.
“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to the enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Treason is…the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance.”
“We’ve danced around this a lot, and we talk about obstructing Congress and things like that. But this was an effort to have a coup to overthrow the country, to break the Pledge of Allegiance we make to this country and to the Constitution,” Pelmutter said.
Meadows “has two masters — Donald Trump and the United States of America.”