Donald Trump is facing further legal headaches amid suggestions his former chief of staff has testified to a grand jury as part of two federal investigations into the former president.
Several media outlets have reported that Mark Meadows has answered questions under oath after being subpoenaed by Special Counsel Jack Smith. He is leading the probes into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and his actions around January 6, as well as the inquiry into his retention of classified documents.
Meadows is said to have answered questions relating to both criminal investigations into the former president while appearing in front of the grand jury, ABC News reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Meadows has long been considered a key figure in the criminal investigation into the events leading up to the Capitol riot because of his proximity to the former president.
Meadows has gained additional significance as part of the classified documents probe after reports emerged that there is audio of Trump admitting in July 2021 that he had retained a secret Pentagon paper, and that the former president no longer had the authority to declassify it.
Trump is said to have made the remarks during a meeting at his property in Bedminster, New Jersey, with two people who were helping to write Meadows’ biography, although the former White House chief of staff wasn’t present himself.
“Without commenting on whether or not Mr Meadows has testified before the grand jury or in any other proceeding, Mr Meadows has maintained a commitment to tell the truth where he has a legal obligation to do so,” George Terwilliger, a lawyer representing Meadows, said in a statement to The New York Times and CNN.
Newsweek hasn’t been able to independently verify the reports and has contacted Terwilliger and Trump’s office for comment via email.
Attorney Andrew Lieb, a legal and political analyst, said that Terwilliger’s statement suggests Meadows didn’t plead the Fifth Amendment when he appeared in front of the grand jury, or that he may have secured an immunity deal.
“If both are true, this is really bad news for Trump, particularly with respect to a possible January 6th seditious conspiracy charge, as Meadows was the central figure in the White House on this issue and knows where all the bodies are buried,” Lieb told Newsweek.
In recent months, Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a historic case in New York, and he was found liable by a civil trial jury of sexually abusing former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll in the mid 1990s.
However, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman suggested that if the reports that Meadows has now testified as part of Smith’s federal investigations are accurate that Trump could yet face greater legal peril.
“Trump has been on the receiving end of a remarkable string of bad blows from the legal system for the last couple months when he was indicted in NY; but the revelation that Meadows has testified against him is by far the worst in the string,” Litman tweeted.
Litman then cited numerous claims that emerged during the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack’s live presentations last year which involved the former White House chief of staff.
These include Meadows’ former aide Cassidy Hutchinson testifying that she heard Meadows telling White House counsel Pat Cipollone that Trump didn’t believe his supporters who were heard chanting “hang Mike Pence” on January 6 were “doing anything wrong” and that the former vice president “deserves it.”
Hutchinson also testified that she saw Meadows burn documents “once or twice a week” in the lead-up to the January 6 attack.
Meadows, who was with Trump while the Capitol riot was taking place, was previously subpoenaed by the January 6 congressional panel to hand over thousands of text messages.
Text Messages
The messages later revealed that Trump’s own family members, as well as GOP lawmakers and Fox News presenters, had tried to get Meadows to convince Trump to get his supporters to end the violence at the Capitol, something the former president did not do for more than three hours.
Meadows is also believed to have played a part in plots involving Trump’s allies to keep the former president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, including a plan to organize slates of alternate “fake electors” to falsely state Trump had won in several key states where he was beaten by Biden.
Lawyer George Conway said that it would be a “very bad sign” for Trump if Meadows had testified to the grand jury given how crucial he could be to the January 6 federal investigation.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Joy Reid, Conway said Meadows was the “gatekeeper” to how and when people were able to communicate with Trump on January 6.
“He was the guy who was opening and closing the door and talking to Trump, he was the one who got Ivanka to come down to talk to her father,” Conway said.
“He was basically in Grand Central Station that day. And if anyone could shed light on Trump’s state of mind, what he did and he didn’t do, it’s Mark Meadows and that’s got to be a very, very disturbing thing for Donald Trump.”
There are also indications that Meadows is increasingly becoming a more important figure in the classified documents probe, where Trump is accused of mishandling top secret materials then obstructing the federal attempt to retrieve them.
As well as his connection to those in the July 2021 meeting where Trump is alleged to have admitted retaining a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, Meadows was also a key representative for the former president to the National Archives while the agency was trying to get Trump to return the documents, and had some role discussing the matter with Trump, reported The New York Times.
The claims that Meadows has testified to the grand jury arrived after The Wall Street Journal reported in late May that Smith’s office is “wrapping up” the classified documents case and that indictments could be forthcoming.
Source: Newsweek.
