Donald Trump is no stranger to allegations of witness tampering. Four years ago, for example, the then-president publicly went after former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during her congressional testimony as part of a House impeachment inquiry. As NBC News reported soon after, the Republican’s intimidation tactics raised questions about whether he’d crossed the line into witness tampering.
Similarly, former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report highlighted multiple instances in which Trump had interactions with witnesses that might have met the threshold for charging obstruction of justice.
As recently as two months ago, as former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan prepared to deliver grand jury testimony in his home state of Georgia, the former president publicly urged the Republican not to answer questions.
But this week, Trump appeared to break new ground.
Late Tuesday, ABC News reported that Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, has not only spoken multiple times to members of special counsel Jack Smith’s team, Meadows also appeared before a federal grand jury as part of an immunity agreement. (Meadows’ attorney disputed the reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, calling it “largely inaccurate.”)
Trump did not respond well to the news. The former president not only lashed out online, he also preemptively tried to argue that Meadows might’ve been pressured into making false claims. What’s more, Trump argued that those who agree to cooperate with prosecutors should be seen as “weaklings and cowards“ — sparking yet another round of discussion about the Republican’s willingness to push legal boundaries. Just as importantly, if not more so, the rhetoric did not go unnoticed in the special counsel’s office. The Washington Post reported: Special counsel Jack Smith argued in new court filings Wednesday that recent comments by Donald Trump show not only that a federal gag order should be reimposed, but that the court should weigh stricter sanctions, including sending him to jail, if he keeps talking about witnesses in his case.
An NBC News report added that prosecutors, in their court filing, argued that Trump was “targeting a known witness in this case in an attempt to influence and intimidate him” and requested that the stay on the gag order be lifted and modified to protect witnesses from attacks. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who imposed and then paused a gag order last week, has not yet responded to the latest filings. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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