There have been questions for several months about whether, and to what degree, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has cooperated with investigators scrutinizing Donald Trump’s alleged crimes. It was against this backdrop that ABC News jolted the political world a bit with this report.
Former President Donald Trump’s final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith’s team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.
According to the report, which has not been independently confirmed by MSNBC or NBC News, Meadows not only spoke to the special counsel’s office, the Republican also told investigators that he repeatedly told Trump in the wake of his defeat that the then-president’s voter fraud claims were baseless.
What’s more, according to the unconfirmed ABC News report and its unidentified sources, Meadows also told the investigators that Trump was being “dishonest” when he first claimed to have won the election before the final results were tallied.
“Obviously we didn’t win,” a source quoted Meadows as telling Smith’s team in hindsight.
The ABC News report concluded, “A spokesperson for Smith and an attorney for Meadows declined to comment to ABC News for this story.” That said, George Terwilliger, Meadows’ attorney, later told CBS News, “I told ABC that their story was largely inaccurate. People will have to judge for themselves the decision to run it anyway.”
Without more details, it’s difficult to assess such a response, though the lawyer’s use of the word “largely” certainly stood out as notable. Also of interest was Meadows’ former boss and the degree to which he apparently took the reporting seriously. Trump published this poorly written rant to his social media platform roughly three hours after the ABC News report reached the public: “I don’t think Mark Meadows would lie about the Rigged and Stollen 2020 Presidential Election merely for getting IMMUNITY against Prosecution (PERSECUTION!) by Deranged Prosecutor, Jack Smith. BUT, when you really think about it, after being hounded like a dog for three years, told you’ll be going to jail for the rest of your life, your money and your family will be forever gone, and we’re not at all interested in exposing those that did the RIGGING — If you say BAD THINGS about that terrible ‘MONSTER,’ DONALD J. TRUMP, we won’t put you in prison, you can keep your family and your wealth, and, perhaps, if you can make up some really horrible ‘STUFF’ a out him, we may very well erect a statue of you in the middle of our decaying and now very violent Capital, Washington, D.C. Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
The volume of nonsense and grammatical errors makes this a difficult missive to read, but the former president basically tried to push a few core points: As courts consider possible gag orders on the former president, I wonder how a published message like this one might be perceived by judges?
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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