Mark Meadows just blew it in the dumbest way possible

| 4:00 pm EST December 7, 2021
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Days ago, in a last ditch effort at staving off an imminent criminal referral for contempt, former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows turned over evidence to the January 6th Committee and agreed to give cooperative testimony. But multiple major news outlets are reporting today that Meadows has changed his mind and has now ended his cooperation.

From the January 6th Committee’s end of things, this is all fine and dandy. They’ll now make an example out of Mark Meadows for contempt, and the DOJ will indict and arrest him. It’ll send a clear signal to other 1/6 witnesses that it’s not just hardened criminals like Steve Bannon who are going to get indicted for contempt, it’s everyone who fails to cooperate – including people like Meadows, who has tried to act like he’s above the fray.

On Mark Meadows’ end of things, he’s managed to screw this up in the dumbest way possible. If his strategy was to not cooperate, he could have hung onto the documents in question (which must have been valuable enough for the committee to give him even a brief reprieve), so he could trade them for leniency later. Instead he’s given away the evidence and gotten nothing for it, and now he’ll still be indicted and arrested for contempt – and no, he didn’t gain anything by delaying the inevitable for a few days.

This is the latest reminder that there are no magic wands for Trump’s people when it comes to getting the January 6th Committee to just leave them alone. Every subpoenaed witness will either have to cooperate and sell out everyone (including Donald Trump) in the process, or get arrested and stand criminal trial for contempt.