Trump and his attorneys realize by now that he has very little room to maneuver, and he needs a defense, fast. A lot of witnesses are coming forward, corroborating each other’s stories, and the story they’re telling is a seamless, internally consistent, compelling, terrifying, and extremely felonious one. According to Rolling Stone, Team Trump is desperate enough to have chosen a risky strategy, putting it all on Mark Meadows.
Rolling Stone writes:
Trump’s inner circle increasingly views Meadows as a likely fall guy for the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Members of Trump’s legal team are actively planning certain strategies around Meadows’ downfall — including possible criminal charges. Trump has himself begun the process of distancing himself from some of his onetime senior aide’s alleged actions around Jan. 6.
That is almost laughably desperate. The central tenet of any such plan is that the average person would believe that Meadows concocted this elaborate scheme which required the entirety of Trump’s inner circle. Meanwhile, Trump just mindlessly went along, unable to stop the diabolical Meadows. Meadows forced Trump to yell at the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight like hell. The theory is not only “unbelievable,” it is unbelievably risky.
After all, as of yet, Meadows hasn’t testified. Meadows committed too many felonies to testify, and he knows it. But if he knows that the Trumpers are about to make him the central target, Meadows has little choice but to cut a deal. Such a deal would be beyond devastating to Trump. The ultimate “loyal” guy lays it out, all of it – and Meadows knew it all. Were that not bad enough, the story Meadows would tell will align with the testimony of every other witness while adding details that only Meadows could know. Meadows’s testimony could act as a legal cattle prod, near-forcing Merrick Garland into prosecuting Trump.
Rolling Stone goes on, noting that the January 6th Committee also has evidence of Meadows’s shady and possibly criminal financial dealings, making him that much more vulnerable. Then reports:
“Everyone is strategizing around the likelihood that Mark is in a lot of trouble,” says a lawyer close to the former president. “Everyone who knows what they’re doing, anyway.”
Yes, it’s certain that everyone is strategizing around burying Meadows because he is in a lot of trouble, including the guy who is in the most trouble, Trump himself.
Mark is gonna get pulverized…and it’s really sad,” predicts one of Trump’s current legal advisers. “Based on talking to [Meadows in the past, it felt like] he doesn’t actually believe any of this [election-theft] stuff, or at least not most of it. He was obviously just trying to perform for Trump, and now he’s maybe screwed himself completely.”
True. But Meadows shouldn’t feel bad. There are thousands of people who have screwed themselves completely trying to perform for Trump.
And yet, for all this self-important anonymous source talk from Trump’s team, they also have to know that dumping everything on Meadows is a measure of their desperation and will force Meadows into a position where he has to turn on Trump. If there is anyone who knows the story soup to nuts, it’s Meadows. At that point, it comes down to who the public believes, Trump or the guy testifying to a story entirely consistent with about 40 other witnesses.
Dangerous and desperate. The country will benefit, however. This plan is the one in which the entire truth is most likely to come out.
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.