January 6th Committee confirms Mark Meadows aide is cooperating
Earlier today the news broke that Ben Williamson, an aide to former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, had given roughly seven hours of testimony to the January 6th Committee. This length of time almost certainly meant that Williamson was fully cooperative, because hostile answers or invocations of privilege of the Fifth Amendment wouldn’t take nearly that long.
Now the January 6th Committee itself is providing some insight into the matter. Committee member Zoe Lofgren appeared on the Lawrence O’Donnell show on Wednesday night, and while she declined to discuss the specifics of Williamson’s testimony, she did confirm that he answered the committee’s questions “directly.”
Lofgren also pointed out that when other witnesses such as Alex Jones simply pleaded the fifth in response to essentially every question, their testimony ended up not taking very long at all. This stands in sharp contrast with Williamson’s testimony, which lasted seven hours, meaning he provided proper answers to the committee’s questions.
Given the roughly 100% probability that the committee asked Williamson numerous incriminating questions about the actions of his former boss Mark Meadows, this means that Williamson has indeed sold Meadows out to the committee.
It’s witnesses like Williamson, who were in the room where it happened but don’t appear to have any criminal liability of their own, who are going to end up being the most cooperative with the January 6th Committee. They know that all they have to do is tell the truth, and then they can go on with their lives.
