When news broke that Donald Trump‘s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had reportedly received immunity from Special Counsel Jack Smith for his testimony in the federal election interference case against Trump, it looked to many as if another domino had fallen against the former President.
But Meadows’s situation is different from what was commonly perceived, says former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. Meadows isn’t now immune from being prosecuted, Mariotti explains. Meadows was granted what’s called “use immunity,” meaning that his grand jury testimony “can’t be used against him.”
The immunity “does not bar charges against [Meadows],” Mariotti explains, adding: “It also means he is not a flipper/cooperator.“
This is helpful context.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) October 25, 2023
As I suggested earlier, it appears that Meadows obtained “use immunity.”
So his testimony (and evidence derived from that testimony) can’t be used against him, but it does *not* bar charges against him.
It also means he is not a flipper/cooperator. https://t.co/UwWeGd8gU7
Meadows’s immunity is not a deal like those in Fulton County, Georgia, where three Trump loyalists — lawyers Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro — have taken plea deals and agreed to “truthfully testify” in the racketeering case against Trump and his remaining co-defendants.
[Meadows is not a “cooperator,” Mariotti says, distinguishing him from Ellis, who seemed to put an especially worrisome crack in the foundation of Trump loyalists when she said, in taking her plea, that if “she knew then what she knows now” she would not have done the Trump team’s post-election legal bidding.]
This take on Meadows’s situation — that he’s not a “flipper” — jibes with Trump’s take on Meadows.
After going on about the pressures the government may have brought to bear on Meadows — jail time for criminal activity, etc. — Trump said “some people” would fold under such pressure.
“Some people would make that deal,” Trump said, “but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?“
Meadows may have offered damning evidence in his testimony — it’s not yet known. But as Mariotti explains, he is not a “cooperator” or “flipper” on Trump, just as Trump believed. There is that Trump caveat though, on which the whole thing hinges: “but who really knows?”
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