Former chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, struck a deal with special counsel Jack Smith in Trump’s 2020 federal election interference case. Meadows received immunity to testify before a grand jury, according to ABC News.
Smith is building a case against Trump for allegedly trying to overturn and “spread lies” about the 2020 election.
According to the report, Meadows told investigators that Trump’s rhetoric concerning the 2020 election was “dishonest” to the American people. Investigators questioned Meadows on conversations he apparently had with Trump concerning election results.
Meadows allegedly informed Smith’s investigators that he indeed did not believe the 2020 election had been stolen, and told Trump in the weeks after the election that there was no proof of widespread fraud.
Since November 2020, Trump repeatedly said the presidential election was “stolen,” and has never conceded publicly.
“I think one of our great achievements will be election security because nobody, until I came along, had any idea how corrupt our elections were,” Trump said during a rally on Jan. 6, 2021. “And again, most people would stand there at nine in the evening and say, ‘I want to thank you very much,’ and they go off to some other life, but I said, ‘Something’s wrong here. Something’s really wrong. Can’t have happened.’ And we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.”
Trump’s supporters then stormed the U.S. Capitol hoping to prevent the certification of the election.
About a year after Trump left the Oval Office, Meadows published a book titled “The Chief’s Chief,” in which he claimed the election was stolen and rigged with help from “allies in the liberal media.”
Meadows’ testimony seemingly contradicts what he wrote in his book. However, according to the ABC News report, Meadows told Smith’s investigators that “he doesn’t actually believe some of the statements in his book.”
Trump has responded to the claim that Meadows is cooperating with federal prosecutors.
“I don’t think Mark Meadows would lie about the rigged and stolen 2020 presidential election for getting immunity against prosecution,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards.”
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case and filed three motions this week to dismiss the case. Trump claims the charges against him violate his right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment, saying “the government may not prohibit core political speech on matters of public concern, regardless of its supposed truth or falsity.”
In another post on Truth Social, Trump claims Meadows never told him that allegations of significant election fraud were baseless, and that Meadows certainly didn’t say it in his book, either.
Meadows is now the fourth Trump ally to turn against him. Other former Trump attorneys, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro, have each taken plea deals in Trump’s Georgia election fraud case, as the former president is also facing similar charges in conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
