Members of the House select committee investigating last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol expressed frustration Monday over an apparently inattentive and slow-moving Justice Department, with one lawmaker telling Attorney General Merrick Garland in a speech: “Do your job.”
Members complained of a lack of support from the Justice Department and were annoyed that criminal contempt of Congress charges have not yet been filed against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for failure to comply with a subpoena from the committee.
The backlog is likely to grow with the expected recommendation by the House panel to bring criminal contempt of Congress charges against Donald Trump’s former trade adviser Peters Navarro and ally Dan Scavino.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in remarks before the committee Monday: “The Department of Justice has a duty to act [on contempt recommendations] .... Without enforcement of congressional subpoenas, there is no oversight, and without oversight, no accountability — for the former president or any other president, past, present or future.”
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) said flatly: “Attorney General Garland: Do your job — so we can do ours.”
The department moved quickly to criminally charge former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in November, just three weeks after the House held him in contempt for defying a committee subpoena. But the charge against Meadows has lagged.
Members contrasted the DOJ’s lack of action against an alarming observation Monday in a ruling by U.S. District Judge David Carter. He said it was “more likely than not” that Trump committed federal crimes in conspiring to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The Justice Department has not yet responded to the panel’s remarks. But Garland earlier this year vowed that the Justice Department was “committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”