Who really leaked that Mark Meadows flipped on Donald Trump – and why
When the news broke today that Mark Meadows cut an immunity deal with Jack Smith a long time ago, my first question was who leaked it. This kind of information doesn’t get picked up by the wind and randomly land on a reporter’s desk. Very few people would have known about the Meadows deal. And among those who did know about it, they all kept it quiet all this time. Then, today, someone within that tiny handful of people made the strategic decision to give this long-secret information to a reporter.
Realistically speaking, the only people who would have known about this deal are Jack Smith and Mark Meadows (aside from grand jurors and court officers who aren’t allowed to speak), along with anyone Smith or Meadows decided to tell along the way. That raises the question of why any of them would choose now to leak it.
One interesting clue is the timing. Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis have all cut cooperating plea deals in Fulton County in the past six days – and now suddenly it’s being revealed that Mark Meadows, who is also a defendant in Fulton County, has been cooperating with Jack Smith in a related probe all along? Coincidences do happen, but this feels like it’s probably not one.
So who would be leaking this right now, and what would their motivation be? We know that Powell, Chesebro, and Ellis are each suddenly under enormous pressure to swiftly cut deals with Jack Smith, before they have to incriminate themselves at the federal level with their Fulton County testimony. Could it be that Smith leaked the Meadows news, in order to put even more pressure on them to flip? You can’t picture Smith’s office ever leaking something so crucial by accident. But a strategic leak? That’s what good prosecutors often do in order to move things along.
It’s also possible that Meadows himself leaked this, in order to give a heads up to the remaining Fulton County defendants that they need to flip. This would be pretty stupid on Meadows’ part, but pretty much every move he makes these days is something stupid, based on the kind of tortured logic that only his fractured mind can follow.
Here’s another interesting clue. Back when it was first reported months ago that Meadows was cooperating with Jack Smith on some unknown level, Meadows’ attorney denied the whole thing. Now that it’s being reported today that Meadows has an immunity deal with Jack Smith, Meadows’ attorney is trying to downplay it by suggesting that the cooperation is something far less than a full deal. But didn’t this guy previously try to tell us that there was no cooperation? It sure feels like Meadows’ attorney has been (understandably) trying to downplay Meadows’ cooperation in order to keep Trump off Meadows’ back. In any case, this would seem to eliminate Meadows as the source. Why would he give this to the media, only to turn around and have his lawyer dispute it? Then again, Meadows does some really weird things.
So who’s the source? Take your pick. Jack Smith seems like the most likely candidate, given that he’s one of the very few people who would have known about it, and that he benefits from this leak in terms of scaring others into flipping. But it’ll be interesting to watch where this goes from here. Whoever leaked the Meadows immunity deal to the media had a specific motivation for leaking it right now – and we’ll likely soon start to see what that motivation is.
