Merry Mr. Meadows
Trump’s former Chief of Staff wants his trial to be whisked away to Georgia’s Eleventh Circuit
August 29
“He must have cut a deal,” a friend said to me, today, thinking that former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had been successful in moving his case to the northern Atlanta suburbs, reliably Trumplandia. She misapprehended the “breaking news” — which most media did — that Meadows had merely completed 4 plus hours of testimony before a Judge in Fulton County, Georgia — the first former associate to testify against Trump in a court of law.
What’s was remarkable was the singularity of this ‘history making’ event — the first former associate to testify against Trump in a court of law — that one could presume a verdict of some sort had occurred.
My mind raced. I indulged my friend’s confusion with a cynical take: “Whatever… in the end, we can be sure we’ll never know for sure.”
Meadows was requesting the judge to change his trial from state to federal jurisdiction. And Meadows appeared confident that he would succeed.
The Judge not only deferred ruling on Meadows’ request, today; the Judge announced he needed additional time to enter his decision and shared that he may not announce a decision at all (1). This surreal display — a Trump Capo on the stand, a Judge eyeing the impact of jury selection on a case involving an alleged criminal running for President— suggested a judicial time travel. Both participants were not only looking at the evidence, but at a future appeal, certain that there would be multiple opportunities for stays, dismissals, and delays in order to process a purported “mountain” of evidence. Defendants in the “Georgia case” — the only Trump trial flying under a RICO sail — were ginning up for the long haul, whining that Trump’s legal war chest and fundraising acumen didn’t extend to them.
Surreal was the J6 trial defense’s request for added time to enable their client to campaign for funds to help meet the costs of his defense.
Surreal was the gist of Meadows’ request, that as he was a former federal officer, he should be tried in a federal court: not in a jurisdiction where the crime was committed, but rather in a jurisdiction where he worked.
Merry Mr. Meadows, the ‘smoking gun’ who turned up as a cap pistol, not a 45. No shells found, just residue. The duplicitous Mr. Meadows, who coached his boss on protecting future campaign options while assisting brand “Trump” in debasing the Office of the Presidency.
The White House as a Banana Republic palacio comes to mind.
Merry Mr. Meadows, who greased the rails for Vice President Pence to violate his oath, then slithered under the rock of “executive privilege.”
Even today, Meadows is active in the public square: defanged, but still toxic.
‘I was a federal officer at the time of my alleged crimes, your honor, so my trial should be heard in a Federal, not a State Court.’
The prospect of being tried in a Federal Court for committing state offenses and violating Georgia election laws is political drama-irony at its best. The calculation of a witness openly confirming his crimes in order to sustain an appeal down the road…
Shakespeare would be scribbling this all down.
“Cassidy there are things you don’t know about.”
-Mark Meadows, January 6, 2021, from sworn testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, former assistant to the President, J6 House Committee Hearings
Merry Mr. Meadows for whom Chief of Staff meant “Campaign Legal Director” perches atop a West Wing Portico surveying the “Dark State,” siphoning political energy and capital away from enforcing policy and supporting the Constitution to running the “Keep Trump in Office Effort.”
Merry Mr. Meadows who walks a tightrope between criminal deniability and campaign rhetoric; who defends the President’s first amendment rights as the President scuttles those same rights; who refuses “to comment” as Trump’s lies wash over a littered beach called ‘democracy.’
Meadows is eloquent, grandiose, really in his effort to muddy the evidentiary waters. He sees the attempt to overturn the election result in Georgia, a defense of, not an offense to Georgia election law. Meadows comes from the school of thought that says, ‘Gee, we were just trying to supply Georgia with electors who could certify a real outcome, in case we were successful in providing evidence of fake votes.’
Anna Cross led the questioning for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. She sought to show that Meadows was doing far more than managing Trump’s time, particularly on the Raffensperger call, when the former chief of staff told Georgia’s top elections official: “There are allegations where we believe that not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted.”
Meadows explained on the stand that he has a habit of using the word “we” expansively, and said in this instance he was referring to the campaign and not the White House. He also said his goal on the call was to resolve a dispute — the Trump campaign was suing Raffensperger at the time. One witness described the call as a “settlement negotiation,” since three lawyers working with the campaign were on the call.
Jones, the judge, appeared skeptical of that argument. When Raffensperger later took the stand, Jones interrupted questioning to ask one himself: Was there any discussion of a settlement negotiation?
No, Raffensperger replied, adding that he viewed the call as inappropriate because of the pending litigation.
“I’ve seen candidates lose and have a recount, but outreach to this extent was extraordinary,” Raffensperger said. (2)
Consider that what’s on trial is not judging evidence but redeeming governance. Enter the West Wing and your schedule is filled with campaigning. Your mission is not to abide governing the country but to keeping the President in office.
Over nearly four hours of testimony, Meadows defended his participation in meetings and phone calls described by prosecutors as part of a plot to subvert Joe Biden’s victory, repeatedly insisting there was a “federal nexus” to all of his actions. He said his duties managing the president’s calendar and extricating him from lengthy meetings necessitated participating in hundreds if not thousands of conversations each month.
“Having open questions [about the election] continued to be a roadblock for initiating other plans,” Meadows testified. He added: “I just needed to land the plane.” (3)
Meadows hopes that by dislodging ‘pending litigation’ — isn’t there always litigation when Trump is around? — from election tampering, Meadows can convince a jury of his innocence on a majority of the charges filed against him.
The challenge for Willis is that by proving the entire Trump apparatus is a RICO venture, where does that leave the country?
For now, Meadows, along with 17 other co-defendants, is due back in court, September 6 for arraignment.
For the rest of the trial, a jury will decide… in Georgia.
August 31
Monday’s soliloquy reminds one of a former trial, in a former public square and the temptation to conflate outcome with moment, to misapprehend what is ‘history in the making’:
The layman after all does not sit as judge in a formal court. The heart of any mystery for a judge or jury is the evidence before the court, which is often, as it was in the Hiss case, old paper. The heart of the mystery for the rest of us is the life of man and discussions of the paper seem to me an evasion of the far, far more difficult problem of the meaning, not of what men leave behind in the past, but of the past itself.”
-Murray Kempton, Part of Our Time, Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties, 1955.
August 29, updated September 1
Notes
1-https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/29/politics/mark-meadows-gamble-trump-fani-willis/index.html
3-ibid.
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