Jack Smith has Mark Meadows one way or the other
ABC News reported on Tuesday that Mark Meadows had reached an immunity deal and testified against Donald Trump. Then other major news outlets contrasted that by claiming that Smith had merely forced Meadows to testify by having the courts impose immunity on him. Here’s the thing: I don’t think it makes a material difference.
If Smith was able to force Meadows to testify against Trump by imposing immunity on him, then it just goes to show that Smith can get any testimony he needs out of Meadows by imposing immunity. Who cares if Meadows liked doing it or not?
Smith wanted Meadows to testify about 1/6, so he imposed immunity and forced him to testify. If Smith wants Meadows to testify about Ginni Thomas or any other topic, he can just impose immunity and force him to testify about that too. For all we know, Smith may have already done precisely that.
The point is that Meadows gave incriminating testimony against Trump. Jack Smith managed to set things up so that the courts gave Meadows the choice of either testifying or being hauled away for contempt, and Meadows chose to testify. It just proves that in the court system, there’s no such thing as magically getting out of testifying. There never has been and never will be.
The only difference is that if Meadows has cut an immunity deal then he’s not going to prison. But if he hasn’t cut a deal, and Jack Smith forced this testimony out of him, then Meadows gave up Trump in a way that could still land Meadows in prison for other things he wasn’t given immunity on.
So this may be a matter of Mark Meadows cooperating in such a stupid way that he still goes down just as hard as if he hadn’t cooperated. Which wouldn’t be surprising. Meadows has consistently made the dumbest decisions possible throughout this process.
Remember when Meadows decided to cooperate with the 1/6 committee and turned over a ton of evidence against himself and Trump, and then changed his mind the next day? Meadows is that level of self defeating idiot. Jack Smith has that evidence, by the way. At this point Mark Meadows is basically a self-whacking piñata.
