Mark Meadows just threw himself under the bus
When someone puts themself way out on a limb, there’s a natural tendency for us to think that they must somehow know what they’re doing. You don’t climb out on a limb unless you know there’s a pot of gold or something up there that no one on the ground can see. That is, unless you’re simply stupid. This brings us to Mark Meadows.
Meadows had his hearing today to try to get his Fulton County criminal case moved to federal court. We’re still waiting for any sort of ruling or feedback about this from the courts. It’s always possible he’ll get a fluke ruling in his favor (which would then be subject to appeal), but because his argument is legally baseless to begin with, it’s likely he’ll simply lose. Moreover, if he loses this hearing, it won’t delay his Fulton County trial by a single day. He’ll have gained nothing from it.
That’s why it’s so bizarre that Meadows reportedly took the stand himself during today’s hearing, so he could personally argue in favor of having the case moved to federal court. Keep in mind that whatever he said on the stand today, it was under oath, and he’s now staked himself to this version of events. So if he gets closer to his trial and he decides that he needs to claim a different version of events in support of a reasonable doubt defense, he can’t do that. He’s forever stuck with whatever he said on the stand today.
It would be different if Meadows had a realistic hope of winning this hearing. Again, his odds aren’t zero. But they’re certainly not 50-50. They’re not even one in four. This is a huge long shot. And Meadows just put down most of his remaining chips on a hand he knows he’ll probably lose. Even if you get lucky and win in such a circumstance, it was still a dumb idea to try it. It’s like spending your rent money on lottery tickets and thinking you’re going to win.
But again, there’s this natural tendency to think that if Meadows is this committed to this strategy, he must know something that we don’t. He must have a better sense of how this is going to play out than we do, or he wouldn’t be doing it. And yet Meadows keeps showing us that he absolutely does not have any sense of how any of this works.
Meadows famously turned over evidence against himself to the January 6th Committee, knowing it would end up in the hands of prosecutors, but then the next day he broke off his cooperation. Once he turned over that evidence to Congress, he was 100% committed to having to cut a deal with prosecutors – yet he never bothered to cut a deal. He instead reportedly gave prosecutors bits and pieces of additional evidence against Trump, and somehow thought that was going to save him. But in the end Meadows simply ended up indicted. He helped take Trump down, and he helped take himself down.
The kicker is that of all the high profile names connected to Donald Trump’s crime spree, Mark Meadows might have been in the best position of anyone to get a cushy immunity deal. Meadows had the ultimate front row seat to multiple Trump crime sprees, meaning Meadows could have likely walked by cooperating, no matter how ugly Meadows’ own crimes were.
Everyone knows that you either cut a cooperation deal with prosecutors and enjoy the benefits of that deal, or you refuse to cooperate with prosecutors at all and at least benefit from not having incriminated yourself and your pals. Meadows chose an imaginary third option that only existed in his broken mind, and it resulted in Meadows and Trump getting indicted.
We’re still dealing with the same Mark Meadows. He’s not suddenly good at this now. Sure, he has good lawyer now, but so what? He’s already shown that he’s the kind of kook who thinks he can magic wand is way through this, instead of taking realistic legal advice about his options.
So there’s no reason to believe that Meadows suddenly knows what he’s doing. If his utterly weird approach to a criminal defense strategy were any good, he wouldn’t have gotten indicted to begin with. He’s already shown that he has a knack for finding creative ways to dig himself an even deeper hole. And now he’s up there on the stand, limiting his own options, for no good reason.
