Former White House chief of staff and current congressional Republican Mark Meadows has had to walk a fine line between cooperating with federal investigators using his testimony to prosecute Donald Trump and preserving his influential political relationships with congressional Republicans.
Tuesday night was a perfect example of that delicate balancing act: Two attendees at a right-wing event in Washington, DC, said they saw Meadows there hours after an ABC News report that he had been granted immunity and met many times with special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
According to AWN’s sources, Meadows cooperated with federal investigators after being granted immunity in order to respond to subpoenas related to both the 2020 election subversion investigation and the secret documents inquiry. He was not granted complete immunity, but rather guarantees that the information he provided to investigators would not be used against him in court, according to the sources.
Meadows is highly influential among conservative members because of his status as a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus and his long history in Congress as a partisan attack dog. But if Republicans think he betrayed the outgoing president, his influence among Trump supporters might plummet.
According to a source close to Meadows, “he’s just trying to be a good faith operator and work with them” in his dealings with the special counsel’s prosecutors. In other words, “that doesn’t mean that he’s selling anybody out or flipping.”
AWN has learned from sources familiar with Meadows’ meetings with House Republicans that he held this month, both on and off Capitol Hill, to discuss the campaign for speaker and to encourage GOP members to choose more conservative candidates who are allied with Trump.
Despite this, Meadows is a crucial witness in the cases brought against Trump. This is why the bicameral committee formed on January 6th recognised Meadows as “uniquely situated to provide critical information” regarding efforts “to delay or prevent the peaceful transfer of power.”
Afterwards, Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger released a statement saying, “I told ABC that their story was largely inaccurate.” The remark came after ABC News’ report was published. Ultimately, it’s up to the public to decide whether or not it should be run. Terwilliger did not specify which details he found to be false in the account.
Meadows did not provide any commentary after being asked. For this article, Meadows’ legal team said they would not comment.
Adhering to the Republican Party
Meadows has maintained strong relationships with many of Trump’s congressional friends despite the president’s departure. According to an article published by AWN in May, he has been instrumental over the course of the previous few months in advising right-wing holdouts on how to wring concessions from House GOP leadership.
According to AWN’s reporting, Meadows and the Conservative Partnership Institute, a DC-based think tank where Meadows serves as senior partner, played a major role in bolstering the failed speakership candidature of fellow Freedom Caucus member Jim Jordan during the most recent speaker fight by coordinating with members, organising calls, and strategizing with right-wing activists.
In an interview with Newsmax published on Thursday, Jordan was asked if Meadows had turned against Trump. I consider Mark a friend, although I could be wrong. But I know Mark, and Mark has high praise for President Trump, just like I do.
But Meadows also handed the January 6 committee incriminating text exchanges in the autumn of 2021, and he submitted important grand jury testimony to Smith’s team this year, all while facing his own criminal accusations in Georgia. (He has denied responsibility for two state offences.)
According to the indictment from Georgia, Meadows collaborated with Trump to exert pressure on Georgia election officials in order to tamper with the vote tally. Since Meadows’ emails about the electors and chats with Trump about voter fraud charges are mentioned in the federal indictment against Trump, he may be called as a witness at the trial.
For the time being, at least, the ex-president’s advisors are not worried about Meadows’ degree of cooperation. Terwilliger’s assertion concerning the ABC News report is believed to be true, and the defence team tells AWN that it is uncertain how beneficial Meadows’ information could be in a trial environment.
From our vantage point, I believe we are relying on his word alone. We have been actively disseminating his attorney’s public statements.
There are three possible interpretations of past events.
Meadows has proposed three alternative versions of his interactions with Trump concerning the 2020 election. His autobiography came out in the autumn of 2021. In a separate development, he reportedly gave private evidence to Smith’s team, which was detailed in an ABC News report on Tuesday. Third, his public statement at a Georgia court hearing in August is connected to his indictment.
Meadows believed that the narratives that overlapped concerning Trump’s multiple attempts to derail the 2020 election contained discrepancies and omissions.
The most striking contrast is in how Meadows deals with Trump’s charges of voter fraud. According to reports, he was dismissive in his testimony before the special counsel, where he faces possible charges of lying. Meadows, in his book, plainly and cautiously sided with the fraud allegations.
Meadows told Smith’s investigators, as reported by ABC News, that he assured Trump several times after the election that claims of widespread voter fraud were unfounded. As for the government’s claim that the 2020 election was the “most secure” in American history, Meadows said he accepts it as well.
In his autobiography, Meadows, however, claimed there was “actual evidence of fraud,” “numerous credible allegations of fraud,” and “thousands of allegations of widespread fraud,” many of which originated in Meadows’ home state of Georgia. While Trump has wrongly claimed that widespread fraud may change the outcome, Meadows has never made such an assertion.
In August, Meadows put himself in the middle of these two disparate viewpoints when he appeared at a public hearing connected to his Georgia indictment.
While testifying under oath in a Georgia federal court, Meadows portrayed himself as a dedicated staffer who was juggling the worries of his boss about the 2020 race with the duties of running the country and preparing for the transition of power to the Biden administration.
When Attorney General Bill Barr told him and President Trump in early December 2020 that the charges of voter fraud were “bullsh*t,” he stated he “had no reason to doubt” Barr. In spite of Barr’s conclusion, Meadows said that, at the time, he believed that “further investigation into allegations of fraud needed to continue.”
According to ABC News, Meadows disavowed his own memoir, which stated, “our many referrals… were not seriously investigated,” by telling Smith’s team that he had faith in the Justice Department’s investigation of voter fraud charges in 2020.
In response to Meadows, Trump
Trump has publicly stated his disbelief in the ABC News investigation on Meadows’ immunity. Trump wrote on Twitter that prosecutors are striking deals with “weaklings and cowards” ready to “say bad things” about him.
“I don’t believe it,” Trump declared on Wednesday. Mark Meadows is a firm believer that the election was rigged, as I have learned from our numerous conversations over the years.
Smith filed a motion with the court on Wednesday night, calling Trump’s comments “prejudicial and threatening” towards Meadows and an attempt to “intimidate and influence” a potential trial witness.
Judge Tanya Chutkan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia was advised by Smith’s legal team to reinstate the gag order she had briefly delayed while Trump appealed. Trump’s comments regarding Meadows’ integrity and other public attacks on the justice system “pose a grave threat to the very notion of a fair trial,” said prosecutors.