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Reports that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is cooperating with authorities are "the worst possible news" for Donald Trump, a law professor has said.
Stephen Gillers, law lecturer at New York University, was reacting to reports that Meadows reached an immunity deal before testifying before a grand jury investigating alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election.
Meadows was by Trump's side in the final days of his presidency and was in the room during Trump's January 2, 2021 phone call to the Georgia secretary of state in which Trump asked him to find more votes.
The former president and frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination was indicted in August in Washington, D.C. and charged with four counts related to alleged attempts to obstruct the 2020 election.
Separately, Trump and 18 others were indicted in Georgia over alleged attempts to interfere in the 2020 election in the state. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Gillers told Newsweek that possible cooperation by Meadows was far worse for Trump than the recent Georgia plea deals signed by three pro-Trump attorneys: Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis, all of whom have agreed to testify against Trump and the remaining co-defendants if required in the Georgia case.
"Immunity for Meadows, especially if it's part of a package that includes cooperation, is the worst possible news for Trump, worse than the deals of Ellis, Powell, and Chesebro. Meadows, even more than [Rudy] Giuliani or the others, can do the most damage to Trump's defenses," Gillers said.
He said that Meadows still runs the risk of prosecution, but not from any testimony he gives before a grand jury.
"Immunity for his federal grand jury testimony means that what he says at the grand jury will not be used against him in any prosecution of him. That includes the Georgia prosecution. That's called testimonial immunity. But immunity doesn't exclude prosecution of Meadows with the use of other evidence that is not derived from the immunized grand jury testimony," Gillers said.
He noted that "immunity can be part of a plea deal that resolves outstanding charges," and so it may be a way for prosecutors to close down a case against a defendant if they cooperate.
A possible Meadows deal could have "gutted" Trump, Neal Katyal, lawyer and former acting U.S. solicitor general, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Meadows went before a federal Grand Jury under an immunity arrangement, and appears to have gutted Trump in the process," Katyal wrote.
Gillers and Katyal were reacting to an ABC News report alleging Meadows secured an immunity deal before giving evidence under Special Counsel Jack Smith's election tampering investigation. Bloomberg carried a similar report.
In a statement to CBS News, Meadows' lawyer George Terwilliger said however that the reports of an immunity deal are "largely inaccurate."
Newsweek has been unable to independently verify the ABC report and has contacted Meadows' legal team and Special Counsel Smith's office for comment.
The ABC report states Meadows repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 election that there was no evidence of any widespread voter fraud which cost him the race against Joe Biden. It said Meadows told federal prosecutors that he believed Trump was being "dishonest" in the early hours of November 4, 2020, when the former president claimed in a press conference "frankly, we did win this election," when a significant number of votes across the country had not been counted yet.
The reports of Meadows speaking to Smith's team at least three times this year—including once before a federal grand jury—could be a significant update in the federal investigation into Trump's alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Meadows has long been considered a key figure in the plan to keep Trump in power after he lost the election and one of the former president's closest allies in the run-up to the January 6 Capitol attack.
About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more