The Justice Department might be looking to charge Mark Meadows: ex-Mueller prosecutor
More and more information is coming in about the Justice Department probe on Jan. 6 revealing that it has gone beyond the violence and moved into the attempt to overthrow the election.
Speaking to MSNBC on Wednesday, former Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann explained that he thinks Mark Meadows is likely going to be charged along with others in higher-level positions.
"Well the time line is, I think, the key because there is a ticking clock," Weissmann began. "And I think that what you're ultimately going to have to see is the department trying to get witnesses and putting pressure on or charging people like Mark Meadows. I think they're going to try and defeat the claim of executive privilege by Pat Cipollone, which he asserted in the Jan. 6 committee hearings that I think is probably invalid. And I think you'll see the department pushing on that, in order to get more evidence and just quickly switching to the John Eastman phone that was obtained only June 22nd pursuant to a warrant."
He explained that the Eastman subpoena was first that federal law enforcement would take his phone, but it wasn't until they could provide further evidence that they were given the warrant to look into the information on the phone.
IN OTHER NEWS: Josh Hawley hit by fellow GOP senator for running away on Jan. 6
"So, this is really the follow-up that the court required in order to actually look at the contents of the phone," Weissmann relayed. "And just for our viewers, I wouldn't expect to hear anything soon on that because there probably is going to be a clean team. That is, a separate team of lawyers and agents who need to look at this because of attorney/client privilege issues. People remember that happened when there was a service of Michael Cohen's phone. So, that is a very long process to do that kind of scrubbing to make sure you're complying with the attorney/client privilege."
He also explained that the news from the Washington Post on Tuesday night about the grand jury asking questions about Donald Trump means that he's a "subject" of the probe, which is a broad category. The "target" of a probe is another matter and that's exactly what it sounds like — where the DOJ has pinpointed a specific person and honed in on them.
It's the reason that Weissmann said that Attorney General Merrick Garland was so broad in talking about the investigation when speaking to NBC News' Lester Holt on Tuesday evening.
See the full conversation below.
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