Multiple people were reportedly given immunity to testify against Donald Trump to Fulton County grand jury
Today the forewoman of the Fulton County special grand jury strongly hinted to the media that Donald Trump and several other unnamed people have been recommended for criminal indictment. This means that we’re merely waiting for District Attorney Fani Willis to work through the process of putting this report in front of a regular grand jury so it can bring the indictments. But there is a new twist, and it involves who all has been cooperating.
The forewoman is revealing that at least one special grand jury witness was giving hesitant testimony, only to become more cooperative after being given immunity on the spot – and that other witnesses already had immunity deals in place before they testified. This in and of itself isn’t a surprise. In general, prosecutors take a crime boss like Trump down by getting some of his underlings to testify against him, and this often requires giving them leniency or immunity. But things get more interesting when you start trying to figure out who was given immunity – and who gave it to them.
Back when Willis was calling people to testify, pretty much every name involved in the Georgia election plot was making its way to the media. When the media learns that one person was subpoenaed, it usually comes from the subpoena recipient. But when the media knows everyone who’s being subpoenaed, that’s usually strategically coming from the prosecutor. What stood out to me was that every name involved in the plot made its way to the media, except for Mark Meadows.
At the time I suspected that it meant one of two things. Either Meadows was being held back from testifying because he was a criminal target, or his testimony was being kept out of the press because he had a secret cooperation deal. But today the forewoman revealed that Meadows did indeed testify.
So does this mean that Meadows had a cooperation deal all along? We saw him give brief but significant cooperation to the January 6th Committee, before breaking it off. Since then we’ve seen conflicting (and seemingly intentionally confusing) media reports about how much or little he’s been cooperating with the DOJ. It makes you wonder if perhaps Meadows already had an immunity deal with the DOJ at the time he testified in Fulton County, and that’s why Willis was so careful to make sure Meadows’ name didn’t see any headlines.
In any case we’ll start finding these things out soon enough. Once DA Fani Willis completes the regular grand jury process and the indictments are released, the text of those indictments will immediately fill in many of the holes about who gave what testimony against whom, who had what kind of immunity deal, and so on.
Then again, if Meadows does have a cooperation deal with the DOJ, that fact could remain under cover until the DOJ brings its own Trump indictments. In such case the Fulton County indictments could do things such as referring to Meadows as “Witness 1” and such. When it comes to the specifics, the intrigue just keeps coming. But it’s becoming more clear by the hour what the big picture is. Donald Trump is getting indicted in Fulton County, and multiple people in his orbit gave him up in exchange for immunity. This means they’ll be testifying against him at his jury trial as well, which is the kind of strong case you’re looking for if you’re rooting for a conviction.
