“What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours.” — Dinah Washington

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about in right-wingnuttia is the fact that Steve Bannon got indicted earlier in the day. Fox News played commentary on stories from 2017 for several hours while it cobbled together its spin in time for Tucker Carlson’s show. Carlson announced that today Joe Biden indicted a “political enemy.” So that’s the tack they’re taking, that this is somehow dirty pool — which is better, I guess, than pretending that the incident didn’t happen at all. I’m going to be very interested to see how this is scripted. If I was Sean Hannity I would be vaping a lot.

Mark Meadows has had a strange day and it hasn’t even been 24 hours, more like 12. Meadows blew off a deposition that he was subpoenaed to attend today. Meadows’ lawyer said that Meadows was depending on a ruling on the issue of executive privilege before he would agree to testify. Oral argument on that issue is set for November 30, a little over two weeks, but Merrick Garland taking this action today has put the issue of defying the January 6 Committee on a totally different footing.

Here is John Dean’s take on it. He thinks that the only option for Meadows and the others subpoenaed is to tell the truth. Novel concept, eh what? One which is unique in Trumpworld, that’s an absolute.

This was a wake up call.

“They know this is now a different game. It’s real. They might have been toying with the idea of doing what Bannon had done, and just defy the committee. There’s been a lot of that throughout the Trump administration. But I think they have to be braced by this because this statute has two parts. One says if you don’t show, a willful default, and that’s what Bannon did, you are going to get indicted. Or two, if you go before the committee and refuse to answer pert pertinent questions, you can also be indicted.”

So where do those subpoenaed stand? Michael Flynn is in San Antonio telling people that he’s not going to surrender the country to the commies. But he also found a few moments to go on mother Tucker Carlson’s show.

I have to drop this in here because the irony is so delicious.

That is sublime. Turnabout is fair play. This reminds me of when James Comey found out he was fired as FBI Director when he was standing in the lobby of a building in Los Angeles which had Fox News playing and he read it off the chyron. Same deal, exactly.

Speaking of turnabout, here is Mark Meadows speaking to the issue of how important it is that people take subpoenas for documents and testimony seriously.

Eric Swalwell agrees with John Dean.

Pundits will weigh in all weekend, but just to focus this issue, take a look at a timeline which Just Security has put together. This is what Meadows’ testimony is going to be about:

Timeline

Election night: As results are coming in, Giuliani proposes, “just say we won” in several swing states. Meadows reportedly thinks the plan is incoherent and irresponsible. 

Meadows thought Giuliani’s argument was both “incoherent and irresponsible,” Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker report. “We can’t do that,” Meadows said, raising his voice. “We can’t.”

On Nov. 4, 2020: The morning after the election, “Cleta Mitchell [is] dispatched by Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to help the Trump campaign in Georgia,” Jane Mayer reports.

In a radio show, Mitchell says Meadows, who she has “known for many years,” called her on the morning of Nov. 4 asking her to go to Atlanta “because he was worried about Georgia … because [Trump’s lead] kept shrinking.” “Probably if anybody else had called me, I would have said you’re two months late, but because it was Mark Meadows and I love the president, I said yes I’d go help.”

Mitchell does not explain how the chief of staff would have a role in such a political assignment. She appears to alternate between saying she was working on behalf of the president/administration and on behalf of the campaign. She states that she worked in Georgia from Nov. 4 to Jan. 8 and did so on a volunteer, unpaid basis.

Note-1: Mitchell later participates, along with Meadows, in the Jan. 2 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger (see entry for Jan. 2 below).

Note-2: For background on Mitchell: Michael S. Schmidt and Kenneth P. Vogel, “Trump Lawyer on Call Is a Conservative Firebrand Aiding His Push to Overturn Election,” New York Times; Jane Mayer, “The Big Money Behind the Big Lie,” New Yorker.

On Nov. 9, 2020: Meadows calls to inform Defense Secretary Mark Esper he is being dismissed for not being “sufficiently loyal.”

Around 1:00 PM, Esper’s chief of staff Jen Stewart receives an email that the president is firing Esper. At the same time, Meadows calls Esper to say “the president’s not happy…  And we don’t think you’re sufficiently loyal. You’re going to be replaced. He’s going to announce it this afternoon” (Leonnig and Rucker book).

Four minutes later, Trump tweets: “I am pleased to announce that Christopher C. Miller, the highly respected Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (unanimously confirmed by the Senate), will be Acting Secretary of Defense, effective immediately.”

On or around Nov. 12, 2020: Meadows reportedly tells President Trump that Giuliani has asked him to look into allegations that tens of thousands of “illegal aliens” may have voted in Arizona. Trump campaign staff investigate “Meadows’ theory.”

Meadows tells Trump that Giuliani’s team has asked him to look into the issue. “Professionals on the campaign staff investigated Meadows’s theory,” Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker report, but it proves invalid (emphasis added). The vast majority of the cases were U.S. citizens living abroad who voted legally.

In mid-November 2020: Meadows and Giuliani create a “parallel track” in a joint effort to raise election fraud claims. 

The Trump campaign sets up a team in Georgia. However, “a parallel track was underway from the Oval Office where Giuliani and Meadows, who was just returning to work after being sidelined by Covid, started bringing in their own people,” the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Bender reports in his book.

(Meadows returned to the White House on Nov. 16.)

In mid-November-December 2020: Meadows introduces President Trump to Jeffrey Clark who plots to oust the acting Attorney General and overturn results in Georgia. Meadows also introduces the president to Mark Martin, who has radical theories of how Pence can stop certification.

Bender reports that, according to DOJ officials, “Meadows had helped introduce Trump to DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark, who was putting together a secret plan to oust Rosen, the acting attorney general, and force Georgia to overturn its results” (emphasis added). Meadows denies any involvement.

This is what Meadows has to tell the truth about. Aye aye aye aye aye, as Ricky Ricardo would say.

And by the way, the smart money at this time is saying that Jeffrey Clark isn’t going to go to prison for Trump, either.

 

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9 COMMENTS

  1. Meadows was helping the former guy set his [attempted] coup in motion, and Bannon was advising.
    Flynn has lied to courts while under oath in the past, so his record isn’t as clean as he’s claiming. (He pleaded guilty, acknowledged it in court, and then hired a wingnut lawyer who f*cked up that plea.)

  2. Wasn’t it none other than Sydney Powell who swooped in and convinced Flynn to renege on his plea deal which would have given him a slap on the wrist? And while the details are murky it would seem there was some type of understanding, if not formal agreement that if Flynn took his tiny dose of medicine for his misdeeds and cooperated his son would get a pass from prosecutors. Powell got Flynn to blow all that up, and Flynn wound up getting a pardon because of all the shit he created for himself. But Trump can’t swoop in and save him anymore. Worse, every charge he pled guilty to (twice!) can now be used against him in court as can all of the evidence of the uncharged crimes which, having blown up his plea deal he can now be charged for.

    Getting indicted for blowing off Congress is the least of his worries at this point, especially if prosecutors start going after his son!

    He had real, competent (and it seems damned good ones to have gotten him that sweet deal he blew off) lawyers and I rather doubt that even if she were available he’d want Powell representing him again. That means paying for competent counsel again and they will surely recommend telling everything he knows and provide receipts (so to speak) and throw himself on the mercy of the court.

    Once upon a time he was a good solider and tough. He’s long removed from that and prison would be a very difficult place for him. Even two years. His drawers are going to be filling up with brown organic matter this weekend and probably every day for a long while. And I for one won’t lose a moment’s sleep over the thought of him in the middle of a giant pile of shit of his own making.

    He’ll huff and puff and maybe try a bit of gamesmanship but he’ll sing like a canary or as I said those career prosecutors who wanted to do a lot more than what they were allowed to before will get approval to nail his ass to the wall. Once they’ve made that clear, and especially if they make it clear his son is going to be in their sights as well he might well offer up enough to bury a lot of bodies into the federal prison system. Maybe even Trump himself. Betting on Trump to somehow win in 2024 at this point is a dubious (at best) proposition.

    • TL;DR Sidney Powell is already guilty of legal malpractice for encouraging Flynn to blow up his deal. And he deserves what’s coming to him for being that stupid.

  3. Hmm. So, if Flynn didn’t “have anything to hide” as of today, why was he not cooperating BEFORE today? Why did it take the imminent threat of an indictment (or, more likely, Bannon’s little “troubles”) to get him to decide that he doesn’t “have anything to hide” and will “respond to the request?”

    • Perhaps flynn’s “nothing to hide” is spouting a bunch of lies which might be the plan of others who will come before the committee. If they get a platform, they might use it, hell most likely use it, to spew the same bull-shit they have been spewing so far.

  4. As Bill Palmer has pointed out, the moment indictments come down, it’s game over on skating completely. Competent corrupt politicians make sure it never gets that far. Steve Bannon will only be the first of many to come.

  6. Oh. By the way Mark, I wouldn’t turn to God unless ur willing to do what Job did in the presence of Yaweh, i.e.,(remember he was righteous, & u are not), he repented, said he depised himself for his prior blindness, & covered himself in dust & ashes. Hypocrites like you never fare well in Biblical stories, so you may want to leave ur Bible at home. If u do bring it with you, be sure to hold it right side up. Gotta keep up the facade.

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