This day was always obvious to me. When it would dawn, I had no clue. But dawn I knew it would, because of the lesson that the Greek playwrights taught thousands of years ago, character is everything. If you know somebody’s character, you know what they will do. And won’t do. ABC News just broke a story about Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff deciding that he wasn’t going to go to prison for his boss. Which, if you recall, is a mantra that I began intoning some years back, “Mark Meadows is not going to go to prison for Donald Trump.”
The descriptions of what Meadows allegedly told investigators shed further light on the evidence Smith’s team has amassed as it prosecutes Trump for allegedly trying to unlawfully retain power and “spread lies” about the 2020 election. The descriptions also expose how far Trump loyalists like Meadows have gone to support and defend Trump.
Sources told ABC News that Smith’s investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office — a book that promised to “correct the record” on Trump.
According to Meadows’ book, the election was “stolen” and “rigged” with help from “allies in the liberal media,” who ignored “actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze.”
But, as described to ABC News, Meadows privately told Smith’s investigators that — to this day — he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept now-president Joe Biden from the White House, and he told them he agrees with a government assessment at the time that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in U.S. history.
There you have it. That’s the bottom line. A lot more elaboration about Meadows’ testimony will come out, but the gist of it is that Trump’s Big Lie is just that, the Big Lie, and Meadows is now corroborating that fact.
The article goes on to describe the role of Rudy Giuliani in telling Trump what he wanted to hear and getting the Big Lie to grow legs.
But Meadows said that by mid-December, he privately informed Trump that Giuliani hadn’t produced any evidence to back up the many allegations he was making, sources said. Then-attorney general Bill Barr also informed Trump and Meadows in an Oval Office meeting that allegations of election fraud were “not panning out,” as Barr recounted in testimony to Congress last year. […]
When the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 11, 2020, denied his final court challenge, Trump told Meadows something to the effect of, “Then that’s the end,” or, “So that’s it,” Meadows recalled to investigators, according to sources.
Still, Trump wouldn’t back down, insisting there was widespread fraud but that the Justice Department wasn’t “looking for it,” Barr recalled.
So at this point Trump has his Chief of Staff and his Attorney General telling him that it’s game over, but what does he do? You know what he did. He had Meadows get Brad Raffensperger on the phone.
Meadows has said publicly that he essentially introduced everyone on the call — which is corroborated by transcripts of the call that were made public — and he has said he was simply trying to help them resolve a dispute over Georgia’s election results.
On the call, Trump mentioned allegations of fraudulent ballots hidden in suitcases, which the Justice Department had already taken “a hard look at” and debunked, according to Barr’s testimony.
As described to ABC News, Meadows told Smith’s investigators that, around that time, there were many times he wanted to resign over concerns that the way certain allegations of fraud were being handled could have a negative impact — but he ultimately didn’t leave because he wanted to help ensure a peaceful transfer of power.
That is Meadows’ story now. But it is emphatically not what he said in this book. The plain truth — and this story says so, it’s not just my opinion — is that Meadows told one story in a vanity piece that he could sell and which Trump himself liked and promoted. But when it came down to testifying under penalty of perjury, Meadows told a different story. Meadows, like so many other Republicans, is a self-serving careerist first, and a public servant when and if it’s convenient.
But sources told ABC News that when speaking with Smith’s investigators, Meadows conceded that he doesn’t actually believe some of the statements in his book.
According to the sources, Meadows told investigators that he doesn’t agree with what’s in his book when it says “our many referrals to the Department of Justice were not seriously investigated.”
Meadows told investigators he believes the Justice Department was taking allegations of fraud seriously, properly investigating them, and doing all they could to find legitimate cases of fraud — and he told investigators he relayed all that to Trump a few weeks after the election, the sources said. […]
Meadows has not been charged in Smith’s federal case, he has been charged — along with Trump, Giuliani and 16 others — by authorities in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the election results in that state. Four of those charged have already pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the prosecution, while the others, including Meadows, Trump and Giuliani, have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.
I’m now going to intone another mantra: Mark Meadows will do whatever he has to do to save his own ass.
Short sweet comment on future doings with Mark Meadows, it stands to reason, Trump has washed a lot of reasonable common sense down the turlet …
Meadows WILL be another simple minded puppet that broke free when he realized his ass was becoming grass and unlikely to survive an on-slaughter of AG’s and honest Judges …
Funny how the thought of the loss of their liberty causes the scales to fall from their eyes.
Suddenly everything is clear now. Even people of poor character, liars, seditionists, and cheats, can respond to a real threat.
A man who regularly took a piss on Jesus’ head while proclaiming himself as a ‘christian’ has NO CHARACTER. He committed voter fraud in my state while shooting his mouth off nationally proclaiming voter fraud. He deserves to be drawn and quartered. A traitor to everything recorded as Jesus’ teachings and to our democracy. If he walks on all his charges then the system is phucked. I’m glad he’s a chickenshit and will be another millstone around trump’s neck, but with 2+million citizens sitting in jail, HE DESERVES JAIL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!
And off he goes into the sunset to the accompaniment of the Red Army Choir singing ‘Meadow Lands’
By having no choice but to tell the truth, Meadows confessed to what a colossal liar he has always been and what worthless garbage his book is. Actually I don’t think we have yet heard the half of Meadows’ role in the attempted coup.
We have seen this before. We need to clean up the third GOP scandal the Bush 2 scandal was covered up by Obama.
Bush pardons for Iran Contra
On 24 December 1992, after he had been defeated for reelection, lame duck President George H. W. Bush pardoned five administration officials who had been found guilty on charges relating to the affair.[128] They were:
Elliott Abrams;
Duane Clarridge;
Alan Fiers;
Clair George; and
Robert McFarlane.
Bush also pardoned Caspar Weinberger, who had not yet come to trial.[129] Attorney General William P. Barr advised the President on these pardons, especially that of Caspar Weinberger.[130]
Nixon conspiracy convictions
G. Gordon Liddy – former FBI agent and general counsel for the Committee to Re-elect the President; convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping; sentenced to 6 years and 8 months in prison; served 4+1⁄2 years in prison.
E. Howard Hunt – CIA operative and leader of the White House Plumbers; convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping; sentenced to 2+1⁄2 to 8 years in prison; served 33 months in prison.
Bernard Barker – member of the Plumbers, FBI agent and alleged CIA undercover operative; pled guilty to wiretapping, planting electronic surveillance equipment, and theft of documents, and later to burglary; sentenced to 18 months to 6 years in prison for the first charge; reversed his plea and served 18 months in prison; later sentenced to 2+1⁄2 to 6 years in prison for the second charge; served 1 additional year in prison.
Virgilio González – Cuban refugee and locksmith; convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping; sentenced to 1 to 4 years in prison; served 13 months in prison.
Eugenio Martínez – Cuban exile and CIA undercover operative; convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping; sentenced to 1 to 4 years in prison; served 15 months in prison; pardoned by Ronald Reagan.
James W. McCord Jr. – former CIA officer and FBI agent; convicted on eight counts of conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping; sentenced to 25 years in prison, reduced to 1 to 5 years in prison after he implicated others in the plot; served only 4 months.
Frank Sturgis – CIA undercover operative and guerrilla trainer, military serviceman; convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping, and separately on a charge of transporting stolen cars to Mexico; sentenced to 1 to 4 years in prison for Watergate (the sentence for the transport charge was folded into the Watergate sentence, due to his cooperation); served 14 months in prison.
The seven advisors and aides later indicted in 1974 were:[7]
John N. Mitchell – former United States Attorney General and director of Nixon’s 1968 and 1972 election campaigns; faced a maximum of 30 years in prison and $42,000 in fines. On February 21, 1975, Mitchell was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury, and sentenced to 2+1⁄2 to 8 years in prison, which was later reduced to 1 to 4 years; he actually served 19 months.
H. R. Haldeman – White House chief of staff, considered the second-most powerful man in the government during Nixon’s first term; faced a maximum of 25 years in prison and $16,000 in fines; in 1975, he was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, and received an 18-month prison sentence.
John Ehrlichman – former assistant to Nixon in charge of domestic affairs; faced a maximum of 25 years in prison and $40,000 in fines. Ehrlichman was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury, and other charges; he served 18 months in prison.
Charles Colson – former White House counsel specializing in political affairs; pled nolo contendere on June 3, 1974, to one charge of obstruction of justice, having persuaded the prosecution to change the charge from one of which he believed himself innocent to another of which he believed himself guilty, in order to testify freely.[8] Colson was sentenced to 1 to 3 years of prison and fined $5,000; he served seven months.
Gordon C. Strachan – White House aide to Haldeman; faced a maximum of 15 years in prison and $20,000 in fines. Charges against him were dropped before trial.
Robert Mardian – aide to Mitchell and counsel to the Committee to Re-elect the President in 1972; faced 5 years in prison and $5,000 in fines. His conviction was overturned on appeal.[9]
Kenneth Parkinson – counsel for the Committee to Re-elect the President; faced 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. He was acquitted at trial. Although Parkinson was a lawyer, G. Gordon Liddy was in fact counsel for the Committee to Re-elect the President.