Former President Donald Trump’s erstwhile chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has denied claims made in a recent ABC News report that he’s “flipped” on his former boss and agreed to testify before special counsel Jack Smith’s team in exchange for immunity.
The denial—made by Mr. Meadow’s attorney in a statement to CBS News and to The Independent—stems from a story run by ABC News on Oct. 24 that cited anonymous sources and broadly claimed Mr. Meadows had agreed to testify under oath and didn’t believe some of President Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen.”
In particular, Mr. Meadows was supposed to have admitted to members of Mr. Smith’s team that he wasn’t convinced about the veracity of some of the statements he made in his memoir, “The Chief’s Chief,” which claims the election was “stolen” and “rigged” with the help of “allies in the liberal media” who ignored evidence of fraud.
Mr. Meadows, according to the ABC report, privately told Mr. Smith’s investigators that he has yet to see evidence of fraud on a scale that would have led to an official Trump win.
The ABC report also claimed that under the deal offered to Mr. Meadows, the former chief of staff’s testimony provided to grand jury earlier this year couldn’t be used against him in any potential federal cases.
Further, a report from The Independent claimed—also based on anonymous sources—that the immunity deal would involve Mr. Meadows pleading guilty to a number of unspecified federal crimes.
However, Mr. Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, has denied those claims on behalf of his client.
Mr. Terwilliger told The Independent that the idea that Mr. Meadows would enter a guilty plea was “complete bull-[expletive].”
And in a statement to CBS News, the attorney said that he “told ABC that their story was largely inaccurate.”
“People will have to judge for themselves the decision to run it anyway,” he added, according to CBS News’ Catherine Herridge.
ABC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
Trump Weighs In
President Trump took to social media to comment on rumors that Mr. Meadows had made statements to the special counsel’s team that undermine the claims in his book that he believes the 2020 election was stolen.“Mark Meadows NEVER told me that allegations of significant fraud (about the RIGGED Election!) were baseless,” President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “He certainly didn’t say that in his book!”
Mr. Meadows wrote in his book that it was the duty of President Trump’s team to investigate any claims of fraud or voting irregularities, in part out of a responsibility to the tens of millions of Trump voters that he said believed “were cheated out of another four years of President Trump.”
He also wrote that members of President Trump’s team firmly believed that the former president had won a second term by a broad margin, with signals such as his rally attendance and his performance in bellwether states.
President Trump won 18 of the 19 counties that had voted for the president in every election from 1980 through 2016, as his legal team outlined in a U.S. Supreme Court brief.
In another message, on Tuesday, on Truth Social, President Trump appeared dubious about claims that Mr. Meadows was ready to flip and wrote: “I don’t think Mark Meadows would lie about the Rigged and Stollen [sic] 2020 Presidential Election merely for getting IMMUNITY against Prosecution (PERSECUTION!) by Deranged Prosecutor, Jack Smith.”
“BUT, when you really think about it, after being hounded like a dog for three years, told you’ll be going to jail for the rest of your life, your money and your family will be forever gone, and we’re not at all interested in exposing those that did the RIGGING—If you say BAD THINGS about that terrible ‘MONSTER,’ DONALD J. TRUMP, we won’t put you in prison, you can keep your family and your wealth.”
“Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future of our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?”
Unnamed sources reportedly close to Mr. Smith’s investigation told ABC News that Mr. Meadows has testified at least three times under oath and distanced himself from President Trump’s claims of a stolen election.
Earlier, Mr. Smith charged Mr. Meadows in Georgia as part of an alleged conspiracy to overturn the state’s election results.
Mr. Meadows, President Trump, and 17 co-defendants were indicted by a state grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, on Aug. 14 over the 45th president’s challenge to the election in Georgia.
Mr. Meadows and all the defendants in the case are accused of violating the Georgia RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] Act, with the indictment alleging that the defendants “unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in, directly and indirectly, such [illegal] enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity.”
