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Donald Trump's ex-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, may have struck a major blow to the former president's defense in the federal classified documents case after reportedly telling investigators he couldn't recall Trump ever attempting to declassify sensitive materials before he left office.
Meadows is alleged to have told Special Counsel Jack Smith's office that he had no knowledge of Trump even talking about declassifying sensitive documents before he left office in January 2021, nor was he aware of any "standing order" from the former president authorizing the automatic declassification of such materials removed from the White House, ABC News reported, citing unnamed sources.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges over allegations he illegally retained classified documents after he was no longer president, then attempted to obstruct the federal investigation to retrieve them.
Trump has long denied any wrongdoing in connection with the classified documents case, including frequently pushing the disputed claim that he had declassified all the papers retrieved by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago resort last August before he left office. In September 2022, the former president told Fox News he had the power as president to declassify top secret documents just "by thinking about it."
The claim that Trump had declassified all the classified materials he held on to after he left office was cast into further doubt in June after an audio tape was released of the former president discussing how he was in possession of a "highly confidential" Pentagon paper about a potential attack on Iran.
During the conversation at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, in July 2021, Trump admitted that "as president, I could have declassified" the document. "Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret."
The July 2021 meeting was between Trump, the former president's aides and two people who were writing Meadows' biography.
In a statement to Newsweek about the Meadows report, a Trump campaign official accused Smith's office of "selectively leaking incomplete information that lacks proper context because they know they can't win inside a courtroom," in an attempt to "deceive Americans through the court of public opinion."
"This witch-hunt is nothing more than a desperate attempt to interfere in the 2024 election as President Trump dominates the polls and is the only person who will take back the White House," the statement added.
Meadows' legal team has been contacted for comment via email.
Experts have now said that the claims Meadows told investigators he was not aware of any attempt to declassify classified documents potentially further damage Trump's defense in the federal case.
"Donald Trump himself undermined his own defense in that audio tape, which is very damning," former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told ABC News' This Week.
"But this is additional evidence, by someone who was very close to Donald Trump, undercuts his theory which was on its face a little bit laughable that he could telepathically or automatically declassify something.
"We'll have to see how it works out with respect to his testimony. Can you be compelled to testify when you take the Fifth Amendment? Would he get immunity? All those things are possible. We'll have to see how that unfolds. But yeah, it's pretty damning," Bharara added.
Former Department of Justice spokesperson Sarah Isgur said that Meadows' proximity to Trump also makes him a key witness in the federal case.
"When you're thinking about a jury, there's just no better witness than Mark Meadows in terms of his closeness to Donald Trump, both in terms of what he'd know crossing his desk, but also his closeness to Donald Trump in understanding what Donald Trump was thinking," Isgur told This Week.
"The only thing better, of course, is going to be the audio of Donald Trump himself in that interview."
Meadows has long been considered a key figure in the investigations into Trump's alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Meadows is one of 19 suspects, including Trump, who has been charged in Georgia under Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' sprawling election interference probe.
Meadows wasn't one of the six co-conspirators accused in Smith's January 6 indictment of conspiring with Trump to overturn the last election's results, raising suspicions that Meadows may have flipped and testified against the former president in the federal case. Trump has pleaded not guilty to four charges as part of Smith's investigation.
Bharara pushed back on the claims that Meadows could have flipped on Trump because he is charged in one election investigation, but not the other.
"We have a situation in which he has been charged in the Georgia case," Bharara told ABC News.
"And it's unlikely that you're charged and defended in one case, but you flipped in a related case. So I don't know that he's cooperating."
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more