Speaking to MSNBC on Monday ahead of an anticipated indictment of Donald Trump this week, former U.S. Attorney Glenn Kirschner, who runs the "Justice Matters" legal explainer blog, turned to Mark Meadows.
The former Republican lawmaker from North Carolina who became Donald Trump's chief of staff has been largely silent in recent weeks, sparking rumors that he may have sided with the Department of Justice against his former boss. It's only been a month since those close to Trump began referring to Meadows using a rat emoji in text message conversations. Now that a Jan. 6 indictment looms, the Washington Post this weekend questioned the role Meadows will play.
"I read the remarkable reporting and buried way down there was, what I thought, was a really important data point regarding Mark Meadows' status at this moment," said Kirschner. "Witnesses in the grand jury have been shown a grand jury exhibit. When we're investigating cases in the grand jury, we will put together any number of exhibits to show the witnesses as we try to puzzle through what happened and who should be charged. This exhibit was a grid of communications, text messages, e-mails, and what have you. When I saw that, my heart sank just a little."
Among the exhibits, the report said, was a text exchange where Meadows was making fun of the conspiracy theories around the 2020 election. One was that there were 10,000 dead voters. In fact, there were about six people who voted early and then died after the fact.
"That's one data point that cuts against Mark Meadows being a full-blown, signed-up, cooperating witness, who is now providing all of the information the prosecutors about the crimes of Donald Trump and others," Kirschner explained.
"Because I would show grids of one of my signed-up cooperators, asking them things like, 'what did Mark Meadows mean when he was using this language or this language? What did he mean by that?' I don't know what Mark Meadows' status is. There is reporting he testified before this grand jury in June. Was he a cooperating witness, an immunized witness, or a hostile witness? We don't know those questions. But one way or another, it feels like Mark Meadows will be a cooperating witness, who is somebody accepting responsibility for his crimes and agreeing to cooperate. Or he may end up a marquee co-defendant in the Jan. 6th indictment with Donald Trump."
Kirschner said that the text from Meadows "made my blood boil."
"You know, if you can't have a little fun turning over the expressed will of the voters when can you have fun?" he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
See the conversation with MSNBC in the video below or at the link here.