Mark Meadows is finally showing up — and it really looks like he’s betrayed Trump

One of the most compelling images from the Jan. 6 House Committee hearings showed former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows slumped on his couch, disconsolately scrolling through his phone, on the afternoon in question while Donald Trump’s angry mob stormed the Capitol. Like the New York Times reported:

[White House aide Cassidy] Hutchinson said she went to Meadows’ office around 2 or 2:05 p.m. that day because she saw the rioters were getting closer and closer to breaking through into the Capitol. As he had that morning, Meadows sat on his couch and thumbed through his phone. “I said, ‘Hey, are you watching TV, boss? … The rioters are coming very close. Have you spoken to the President?’ He said, ‘No, he wants to be alone now,'” she recalled. “I remember Pat saying it [Meadows]something along the lines of, “The rioters have gotten to the Capitol, Mark, we need to go down and see the President now.” And Mark looked up at him and said, ‘He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat,'” Hutchinson said.

This was the man who had constantly stood by Trump during the turbulent weeks before as the president tried by any means necessary to nullify the results of the 2020 election. He knew Trump didn’t want to stop the violence in the Capitol. He knew Trump was actually enjoying it. And he knew there was nothing to be done about it.

Meadows originally agreed to work with the select committee itself and turned over a large body of communications related to post-election attempts to reverse the results. But according to Meadows’ book “The chief’s boss” was published in which he drew Trump’s ire Meadows withdrew his cooperation due to his unflattering portrayal of the president’s behavior after contracting COVID-19 and was eventually referred to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress.

Unlike podcaster and agitator Steve Bannon and former trade adviser Peter Navarro, both of whom also refused to obey a congressional subpoena, Meadows has not been prosecuted by the DOJ. Neither was former White House communications official Peter Scavino. There was no explanation at the time, but many observers assumed that since Meadows was no longer in Trump’s sphere of influence, he was cooperating with federal investigators.

Meadows has not commented publicly on the events of Jan. 6 or the by-election plans since leaving the White House. CNN reported that he is tacitly employed in a high-level job as “senior partner of the Conservative Partnership Institute, a pro-Trump think tank that pays him more than $500,000 and whose earnings have grown to $45 million since Meadows in 2021” , according to the group’s tax returns.” Good job if you can get it. Meadows also serves as an informal advisor to the far-right House Freedom Caucus and is reportedly helping to lead the group’s rebellion against Kevin McCarthy’s candidacy for speaker and its strategy during the debt ceiling negotiations. But according to his “best friend,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, with whom Meadows reportedly speaks at least once a week, they “make a point of not discussing legal matters.”

All of this makes Trump very nervous because Meadows has become a “rat.” According to Rolling Stone, Meadows’ attorneys cut ties with the Trump team months ago, and they had no idea what contact Meadows had with Special Counsel Jack Smith or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Meadows reportedly testified before the federal grand jury in Washington, but took fifth place when called before the Georgia grand jury. When the federal charges against Trump in the Jan. 6 case were eventually dropped, Meadows was not mentioned among the “unindicted co-conspirators,” despite ample public evidence that he was instrumental in the conspiracies for which Trump was accused . That seemed to be a clear indication that he had become a star witness.

This week we received another major clue as to what exactly Meadows was up to. He was among the long list of Trump associates charged in Fulton County on Monday night in Willis’ full-scale conspiracy case. Unlike Trump and other key figures like Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, Meadows has only been charged on two counts: violating Georgia’s racketeering law and “prompting an officer’s breach of public oath.”

The first of these is the overall conspiracy charge set forth in the indictment, which relates to Meadows’ propagation of false theories about voter fraud and his attempts to pressure Justice Department officials and various state officials in Georgia and elsewhere. The second relates to the fact that Meadows “actively participated and discussed Trump’s infamous phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger,” when the then-president proposed “finding” enough votes to give him victory in that state . It’s easy to see why Meadows placed fifth in this instance.

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On Tuesday, Meadows became the first defendant in the Georgia case (but certainly not the last) to do so announce that he would seek a referral of his case to federal court because his alleged criminal activities “all occurred during his tenure and in the course of his duties as chief of staff.” In his statement, Meadows stated that “arranging meetings in the Oval Office, contacting state officials on behalf of the President, visiting a state government building, and arranging a phone call for the President” were among his duties, and that one was those of the President would expect Chief of Staff to “do things like that”. It sounds like Meadows is defending himself, as they say, by merely following orders.

This strategy is not unprecedented, and many legal observers believe Meadows has a good chance of getting his case at the federal level. Willis would continue as the prosecutor, but would try the case before a federal judge and a statewide jury, both of whom potentially have more sympathy for Meadows. There would be no cameras in a federal courtroom, which is unfortunate because a televised trial could offer one last chance to penetrate the minds of the few remaining Republican voters who aren’t quite finished yet.

None of this explains Meadows’ role in the Jack Smith case in Washington, DC, where the former chief of staff appears to have been treated with kid gloves throughout the trial. Undoubtedly, Trump’s team is eager to sift through all of the discovery material to see what it can find out.

I always thought Meadows was a bit fat, not to mention that he was certainly unqualified for the important job, which he did remarkably poorly. Apparently he’s smart enough to hire a highly competent attorney and take that person’s advice, making him one very stable genius compared to his former boss. He may be the only major January 6 conspirator to emerge from this mess relatively unscathed.