(CNN) — Donald Trump’s wealth, power and fame have served as a magnet for new partners eager to enter his orbit. But now, the main characters seeking a piece of his reflected glory turn against him to save themselves.
The former president took three hits on Tuesday that exacerbated the legal risks he faces and underscored how the 2024 election, in which he is the front-runner for the Republican nomination, will be played in the courts rather than on traditional battlefields.
In the most important event, ABC News reported Trump’s former chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, met with federal prosecutors multiple times and flatly undermined the former president’s narrative about what he says was a stolen election. Meadows was the gatekeeper of the Oval Office in the critical days when Trump allegedly planned to steal the 2020 election after voters rejected his bid for a second term. CNN has reached out to Meadows’ attorney for comment.
In another devastating development, former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, who covered for network television after President Joe Biden’s victory to falsely claim he was elected fraudulently, has reached a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors. Ellis tearfully pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony charge of complicity in false statements she and other attorneys made to state lawmakers. She was the third former Trump aide to agree to testify against the former president and others this week. The election subversion charge brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis now follows the classic mob case playbook of small fish fighting to get reduced sentences and secure testimony against the alleged suspect.
If I had known then what I know now, I would have refused to represent Donald Trump in his post-election challenges. “I look back on this experience with deep regret,” Ellis said.
Ellis was a relatively minor figure in Trump’s plans to overthrow the election, although there is reason to believe he was present at important meetings of interest to prosecutors. His guilty plea also appears to be bad news for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also served as Trump’s post-election lawyer and with whom Ellis worked closely.
His denial of his behavior bodes ill for Trump because it shows that while lies about voter fraud remain a powerful political force in the Republican Party and conservative media, it is the truth that matters in court. Depending on the legal system, the former president may face a level of accountability that the American political system, which continues to collapse under his influence, cannot match.
One of Trump’s former advisers showed no remorse when he arrived in a New York court on Tuesday seeking to undermine another of Trump’s legal defenses. Michael Cohen, a former aide to the president, came face to face with his former boss for the first time in five years when he took the stand in a civil trial in which prosecutors seek to end Trump’s ability to do business in the state. Cohen has already been to prison on charges of tax fraud, making false statements to Congress, and campaign finance violations, some of which were linked to his work for Trump before he began his political career. Cohen once vowed to take a bullet for his former boss, but he left little doubt that he had been eager to testify against him for months. While his conviction raises credibility issues about his testimony, Cohen implicated Trump on Tuesday, saying his former boss ordered him to inflate his net worth in financial statements.
“Terrible meeting,” Cohen told reporters after testifying as Trump watched.
Trump is feeling increasing legal pressure
Both Tuesday’s legal drama threatened to undermine Trump’s standing in separate cases, in which he has pleaded not guilty, and underscored that the Republican front-runner’s efforts to reclaim the White House would be overshadowed by his criminal liability.
For someone with the inflated sense of loyalty that Trump holds – even though the loyalty mostly goes in one direction – the sight of three former aides turning against him will be particularly disturbing.
While the torrent of legal cases overwhelming him has not diminished his dominance in the GOP presidential race, there are growing signs that judicial pressures are beginning to irritate the former president who has made art in his business, personal and political life. From evading responsibility.
In an angry outburst on his social network, Truth Social, on Tuesday night, he lashed out at Trump ABC reports on Meadows.
“I do not believe Mark Meadows lied about the rigged and stolen 2020 presidential election simply to gain immunity from prosecution (trial!),” the former president wrote.
“Some people may make this deal, but they are weak and cowardly, and very bad for the future of our failing nation. I don’t think Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? “LET’S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
This happened after only one day Trump will absurdly compare himself to Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison – most of it in a small cell on Robben Island – where he was subjected to forced labor in a quarry for opposing South Africa’s racist apartheid regime. After his release, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate reshaped his divided nation as president and became a symbol of unity, humility, racial healing and tolerance, qualities Trump rarely displays.
“I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela, because I do it for a reason,” the former president told supporters in New Hampshire.
However, Trump’s persecution complex is revealing. The former president presents himself as a bulwark against a government armed, according to him, against him and his supporters. The idea that he is a political martyr who is being unfairly targeted by the Biden administration — despite 91 counts in his four criminal indictments — may be his only credible campaign tactic. After all, you could be a convicted felon on Election Day in less than 13 months. While this possibility does not seem to bother Republican primary voters, it could pose a serious vulnerability among the broader electorate.
The importance of developing the plains region
Legal observers in Washington have speculated for months about the activity of Meadows, the former North Carolina congressman who became the last White House chief of staff in Trump’s turbulent era.
During his testimony before a federal grand jury, Meadows was also asked about efforts to overturn the election, as well as Trump’s handling of classified documents. CNN reported earlier.
But if he was granted immunity by special prosecutor Jack Smith, as ABC News reported, and met with federal prosecutors multiple times, that qualifies for the overused term “bombshell.”
Meadows is also a key figure in the investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, where he made an unsuccessful effort to take his case to federal court after unsuccessfully arguing that his actions at the behest of Trump’s efforts to thwart the election were within his official duties. .
Meadows, who has met with Smith’s team at least three times this year, told investigators that he did not believe the election was stolen and that Trump was “dishonest” by declaring victory so soon after the polls closed in 2020, according to ABC.
The agreement is the first publicly known in the special counsel’s investigation into the events that occurred around January 6, 2021. The exact terms of Meadows’ agreement with prosecutors are unclear, but such agreements often give a person with valuable information about the investigation immunity from prosecution. In exchange for full cooperation.
The public details of Meadows’ testimony could do significant damage to Trump because a core element of the former president’s defense rests on the idea that he sincerely believed the election was stolen and that his actions were therefore not criminal because they were an exercise of their right. To freedom of expression.
It has long been the case that while people around Trump in business and politics often find themselves in legal trouble, he escapes. The clear-cut decisions made by Meadows, Ellis, and Cohen—combined with a series of legal threats the former president now faces—suggest that The Charmed Life is about to face its biggest challenge yet.
