How long has Jack Smith had Mark Meadows up his sleeve?
Today we all learned that Mark Meadows has already testified to the grand jury in Jack Smith’s January 6th case against Donald Trump and Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Donald Trump. As of this moment we still don’t know when Meadows testified – but that detail could be very important in terms of figuring out precisely when Trump will be indicted in both probes.
Today’s news is not one of those instances where the staked out media spotted Meadows going in and out of the courthouse. Based on the way the media is phrasing things, it’s clear that Meadows managed to testify on some unknown previous date without the media spotting him (it’s possible the DOJ snuck him in through a parking garage or something like that). Then today, someone (perhaps Meadows himself) strategically decided to tip off the media about the fact that Meadows had already testified.
But when did Meadows testify? It matters because Meadows was believed to have been the last major witness who hadn’t yet testified in the January 6th case. It’s been widely assumed that the January 6th indictment against Trump would come a fair amount of time after the Trump classified documents indictment. But if Meadows has already testified, then the January 6th case is probably finished or nearly finished as well.
This all leads to the key question: when Trump is indicted in the classified documents case, will he also be simultaneously (or near-simultaneously) indicted in the January 6th case? I’ve written in the past that Jack Smith seemed to be lining up the two cases to potentially reach their conclusions at the same time. Then all the focus shifted to the classified documents case, because only that case was making news. But now we’re learning that both cases may be fully complete.
So what now? All the media reporting about this week’s meeting between Jack Smith and Trump’s attorneys has portrayed that meeting as having been solely about the classified documents indictment being imminent. But did Smith also inform Trump’s attorneys that he’s being indicted in the January 6th probe? We just don’t know.
But it is now fair to wonder if this week’s Trump indictment will include charges in both these probes. Then there’s the Jack Smith probe into Trump’s wire fraud, and the Jack Smith probe into Trump’s international finances. Are those cases complete as well? There has been so little reporting about them, we have no way of knowing. But there was also very little reporting about Jack Smith’s January 6th probe for awhile, and now it turns out that probe may already be complete.
The bottom line: stay tuned. Even now that we’re at the finish line, we still don’t know precisely how these Trump indictments will come down. We don’t know the specific dates or groupings for how the charges will be brought. But it sure is looking like Trump will be charged with something within the next week. And yes, plenty more details will surely keep surfacing in the meantime.
