Trump Attacks Mark Meadows and Jack Smith Following Bombshell Report Undermining ‘Stollen’ Election Claims
Former President Donald Trump pushed back hard on Tuesday’s bombshell ABC News report that his former chief of staff Mark Meadows took an immunity deal to testify to a grand jury over charges of election fraud.
Jonathan Karl reported that Meadows spoke with special counsel Jack Smith’s team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which occurred only after Meadows was granted immunity to testify under oath. Karl reported:
The sources said Meadows informed Smith’s team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump’s prolific rhetoric regarding the election.
According to the sources, Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being “dishonest” with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on Nov. 3, 2020, before final results were in.
“Obviously, we didn’t win,” a source quoted Meadows as telling Smith’s team in hindsight per Karl’s report, which strikes at the heart of both the federal and Fulton County case against Trump for criminally conspiring to defraud the American people that a free and fair election was “rigged.”
Trump took to Truth Social and suggested he didn’t think Meadows was the sort to lie to prosecutors to get “IMMUNITY.” He then passively aggressively suggested Meadows was among “weaklings and cowards” that would strike a deal and are “so bad for the future our Failing Nation.”
“I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? ” Trump wrote:
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!!!
Trump then added:
Mark Meadows NEVER told me that allegations of significant fraud (about the RIGGED Election!) were baseless. He certainly didn’t say that in his book!
So Trump is denying that Meadows ever told him that there was no election fraud. Former Attorney General Bill Barr has repeatedly said on record that he and his Department of Justice found no evidence of widespread fraud, which would support the idea that Trump knew he lost but refused to accept that and effectively tried to steal the 2020 election with baseless claims of election fraud.
As for the gag order, Politico’s Kyle Cheney called Trump’s attack a “checklist of things barred by the gag order:
This Trump post about Mark Meadows is like a checklist of things barred by the (now-suspended) gag order:
1) Direct attack on Smith
2) Calling cooperators “weaklings” and “cowards”
3) Commenting on the substance of Meadows (a known witness’) testimony pic.twitter.com/qYczrXuQGd— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 25, 2023
On October 21, Judge Tanya Chutkan lifted a limited gag order pending her further ruling.
