“A tricky approach” to avoiding conviction
New information in the Trump stolen documents case surfaced over the weekend. ABC News had a scoop on former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows’ testimony to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators. Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) this morning summarizes key points:
- Meadows knew of no standing order to declassify documents
- He was not involved in packing boxes, didn’t see Trump doing so, and wasn’t aware Trump had taken classified documents
- Meadows offered to sort through boxes of documents after NARA inquired about them in May 2021, but Trump declined the offer
- Meadows ultimately backed his ghostwriter’s account that the Iran document that Trump described to Meadows’ ghost-writer was on the couch in front of him at the time of the exchange
Meadows asked that the part about a classified Iran war plan sitting out in plain view be edited out of an early draft of Meadows’ book, “The Chief’s Chief,” ABC reports:
Sources told ABC News that Meadows was questioned by Smith’s investigators about the changes made to the language in the draft, and Meadows claimed, according to the sources, that he personally edited it out because he didn’t believe at the time that Trump would have possessed a document like that at Bedminster.
Meadows also said that if it were true Trump did indeed have such a document, it would be “problematic” and “concerning,” sources familiar with the exchange said. Meadows said his perspective changed on whether his ghostwriter’s recollection could have been accurate, given the later revelations about the classified materials recovered from Mar-a-Lago in the months since his book was published, the sources said.
Significantly, Meadows changed his testimony on the matter, Wheeler notes. Based on his court filing asking to have his Georgia charges dismissed, he’s clearly trying to frame his actions in both the Georgia and documents cases as “just doing his job,” hoping it will help him evade convictions, Wheeler continues:
There’s an arc here. The early acts in both indictments might be deemed legal information gathering. After that, in early December, Meadows takes two actions, one alleged in Georgia and the other federally, both of which put him clearly in the role of a conspirator, neither of which explicitly involves Trump as charged in the Georgia indictment. Meadows:
- Asks Johnny McEntee for a memo on how to obstruct the vote certification
- Orders the campaign to ensure someone is coordinating the fake electors
Wheeler explains at length how Meadows is exposed both federally and in Georgia for actions taken arguably outside the scope of his COS duties and with no clear federal policy interest.
Between the overt political nature of three of his actions and the lack of any policy argument, Fani Willis should be able to mount an aggressive challenge to this effort, though the effort is not entirely frivolous and Meadows has very good lawyers even if those lawyers don’t have great facts.
[…]
The degree to which subsequent events, including the Georgia indictment, may discredit Meadows’ federal grand jury testimony likely explains why we’ve gotten the first ever leak as to the substance of Meadows’ testimony, which often serves as a way to telegraph testimony to other witnesses. Several of the things ABC describes him as testifying to — that he had no idea Trump took classified documents and that he offered to sort through everything but Trump refused — seem unlikely. But so long as whoever else could refute that (including Walt Nauta, who helped pack up the boxes) tells the same story, he might get away with improbable testimony.
Wheeler summarizes:
Meadows appears, thus far, to have succeeded with a very tricky approach. He has great lawyers and it may well succeed going forward. But with all the indictments flying, that effort gets far more difficult, particularly given the way the overt acts in the Georgia indictment discredit Meadows’ federal grand jury testimony.
Conclusion: Mark Meadows is dancing as fast as he can.