Mark Meadows handed powerful ammo to prosecutors by testifying in Georgia hearing: report
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was asked by a Georgia prosecutor last month if he had “any role” in coordinating the bogus fake electors scheme that was designed to keep Donald Trump in power in the wake the 2020 election, The New York Times reported.
His answer, which came as he unsuccessfully tried to have his case moved to federal court, might have strengthened the case against him.
Meadows replied that he did not. The prosecutor then presented an email that Meadows wrote to a Trump campaign staffer in which he said, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for the states.”
"The exchange, which prosecutors will almost certainly use against Mr. Meadows at trial, underscored the high-stakes gamble that he took by testifying. So far, the gamble has not paid off: In early September, U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones declined to move his case to federal court," The Times' report stated.
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Meadows’s lawyer had asked his client to testify during the hearing – a move that put Meadows directly in the hot seat.
Meadows' testimony may have given prosecutors more ammunition as he prepares to go to trial along with Trump and 17 other co-defendants.
“He did do a number of things which will make the prosecutors’ job easier,” Caren Morrison, a former federal prosecutor and associate law professor at Georgia State University, told The Times. “He’s created some additional trouble for himself, I think, as well as for Trump.”
During her cross-examination of him, prosecutor Anna Cross alleged Meadows had specifically offered financial assistance from the Trump campaign to help with ballot verification in Georgia and asked why he had made such an offer on behalf of the Trump campaign.
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Meadows claimed he was just trying to "speed things up." His legal team says he did nothing illegal and was just simply carrying out his duties as an aide to Trump.
Noah H. Pines, an Atlanta-area criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor, told The Times that now, every word of Meadows' testimony can be used against him at trial.
Read the full report over at The New York Times.