Report: Mark Meadows told Jack Smith, grand jury that Trump’s election fraud claims were bogus

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has reportedly secured an immunity deal and told special counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury that he informed then-President Donald Trump that claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election were baseless.

The revelation, reported by ABC News citing anonymous sources, marks a major break between the former top aide and Mr. Trump, who is the 2024 GOP presidential front-runner and continues to say the last election was stolen from him.

Mr. Meadows told federal investigators that Mr. Trump was being “dishonest” about his election claims starting on election night and that their side “obviously didn’t win,” according to the report.

The disclosures in the report are significant because Mr. Meadows, a former Republican congressman from North Carolina, was a trusted Trump loyalist in the period following the 2020 election and had an inside look at goings-on in the White House.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement: “Wrongful, unethical leaks throughout these Biden witch-hunts only underscore how detrimental these empty cases are to our Democracy and System of Justice and how vital it is for President Trump’s First Amendment rights to not be infringed upon by un-Constitutional gag orders.”  

“Transparency and free speech are the only way to combat murky gossip,” he said of the report. “President Trump will not be deterred by Crooked Joe Biden’s election interference and will continue to focus on winning back the White House and Making America Great Again.”

Mr. Meadows has been indicted alongside Mr. Trump and 17 others in a case out of Georgia, though the ABC News report pertains to a federal case pushed by Mr. Smith.

Mr. Trump contends that he did nothing wrong and Mr. Smith, under the auspices of the Biden administration’s Department of Justice, is trying to thwart his 2024 presidential bid.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Meadows declined to comment to ABC News for its report, which highlights the contrast between what Mr. Meadows told investigators behind closed doors and his book, which said “allies in the liberal media” ignored “actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze.”

The report also says Mr. Meadows described Mr. Trump’s delay in responding to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, though he says Mr. Trump grew concerned over time, particularly when he heard that Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt had been fatally shot trying to enter the House chamber.

Mr. Meadows still faces legal jeopardy in the Georgia case, where three former Trump attorneys recently pleaded guilty to charges in exchange for sentences of probation. They must cooperate with prosecutors as they press their cases against the other defendants, including Mr. Trump.

Some aides-turned-critics of the Trump administration offered little sympathy for Mr. Meadows after the ABC News report was published.

“Mark Meadows has always known the truth about everything,” Olivia Troye, an aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, wrote on social media. “He knows all the lies that have been told. It makes sense that he was granted immunity by the Special Counsel. The walls keep closing in … one day at a time.”