Teri, what do you think of Mark Meadow’s potential perjury exposure after being caught lying in cross-examination?
After a number of people asked me this, I started poking around to see where the question was coming from. I learned that a former prosecutor who often appears on TV posted this:
“Meadows’ perjury in the removal hearing can be both separately prosecuted and be additional proof against him in the 1/6 case. Note: it can be used for both ends by Jack Smith.”
I also discovered that the declaration that Meadows committed perjury was being picked up by MSNBC and other outlets. I looked at the readers’ and viewers’ comments. No surprise, people were outraged and indignant, demanding that Meadows be held accountable for committing perjury.
To do my own analysis, I started with this report by Anna Bower, which I supplemented with snippets of the actual transcript offered by MSNBC (I did not purchase the entire transcript from Pacer):
Prosecutor: “Did you have any role, Mr. Meadows, in coordinating the various electors in the contested states for the Trump campaign?”
Meadows: “No, I did not.”
Prosecutor: “No role at all?”
Meadows: “The only time that I know of from the elector’s point was when somebody raised the issue with me and I referred it on to the campaign.”
Prosecutor: “So you had no role for the campaign or as Chief of Staff in coordinating those efforts across contested states?”
Meadows, “As Chief of Staff, no I did not coordinate those efforts.”
[Notice that Meadows changed the framing from “any role” to “I did not coordinate those efforts.” Notice also that he said his level of involvement was to pass along issues about the electors to the campaign.)
Prosecutor: “Okay. Got that?”
A few minutes later, the prosecution submitted its first exhibit. It’s an email exchange between Meadows and a Trump campaign adviser, Jason Miller. In the email, Meadows appears to attach a copy of the “Chesebro memo” that set out a strategy for coordinating “alternate” electors across several contested states. In the email, Meadows writes: “Let’s discuss.” In a later email, Meadows writes, “If you are on it then never mind the meeting. We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for States.”
Prosecutor: “Who is we?”
Meadows: “The campaign.”
(Earlier Meadows testified that he overuses the pronoun “we.”)
On redirect (this is when Meadows’ lawyer gets to follow up with questions), the defense lawyer asks for clarification about what Meadows meant by ‘we’ in the email he sent to Jason Miller.
Meadows reiterated what he had said earlier: he has a habit of overusing the pronoun “we.” It’s a “leftover from my congressional days,” Meadows says. “Here, I meant ‘the campaign’, not ‘me with the campaign together.’”
Okay, now for the legal analysis. Here are the elements of perjury:
- The declarant took an oath to testify truthfully,
- He willfully made a false statement
- The declarant believed the statement to be untrue, and
- The statement related to a material fact.
To sustain a conviction for perjury, each of those elements must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. #1 and #4 are easy. #2 and #3 are trickier. First, “to prove that the witness gave a willfully false statement, the question asked must have been unambiguous.” So a jury will have to decide whether the prosecutor’s question, “Did you have any role?” was unambiguous.
It seems to me that “any role” is ambiguous. What, exactly, is a “role”? This is complicated by the fact that Meadows reframed the question as “I did not coordinate those efforts” and later he told someone “We just need someone to coordinate the efforts.”
The statement “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for States,” sounds to me like he was specifically saying someone else needs to coordinate the electors for the states, which would mean that the person ultimately wasn’t him.
Given that this was how Meadows reframed the question and that he testified that his role was to forward stuff to the campaign, I’m not 100% persuaded that he was impeached by the fact that he forwarded a memo to the campaign about the electors and said, “We just need someone coordinating the electors for states.”
Moreover, consider that the email was from 32 months ago so it would make sense that he didn’t recall precisely what he had written. The prosecutor, on the other hand, had the email in front of her and tried to get him to say he had played “no role” (although he qualified that in his answers.)
Also, for a charge of perjury to stick, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Meadows willfully lied. The Supreme Court has said that a perjury conviction cannot be based on “merely unresponsive or evasive testimony calculated to mislead but containing the literal truth.” In other words, courts have made it hard to get a conviction for perjury because sometimes people really can’t remember. Sometimes people get confused.
Mark Meadows was on the stand for 4 hours. People can become fatigued. The standard, that he willfully lied, is intentionally difficult.
It seemed like the prosecutor was playing a game of “gotcha”: Get him to say that he played no role, and then show him an email in which he was forwarding information to the campaign and talking about coordinating electors.
My conclusion: Maybe he deliberately lied and committed perjury, but on the evidence here, I think it would be difficult to get a conviction for perjury.
What the heck, Teri! Are you defending Mark Meadows?
I’m showing you how this works. First one side makes an argument, and then the other side makes a counter argument. At this stage, all we can do is assess the strength of each argument.
Also, I’m showing you that defense lawyers are no fun. They are there to ruin the party. Most of the time they fail. Sometimes they succeed. Whether they succeed or not, you’ve got to admit they are party spoilers.
- Prosecutor: He lied and committed perjury!
- Audience: “Lock him up!”
- Defense lawyer:
Here is how Fani Willis, the prosecutor who has indicted Meadows, characterized what happened in court:
And after insisting that he did not play “any role” in the coordination of slates of “fake electors” throughout several states, the defendant was forced to acknowledge under cross-examination that he had in fact given direction to a campaign official in this regard. Specifically, the defendant wrote an email, State’s Exhibit 1, in which he said, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for the states” and attached a memorandum written by co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro recommending the organization of slates of presidential electors to meet and cast votes for Mr. Trump in states Mr. Trump had lost.
See how that paragraph offers a particular slant with words and phrases like “insisting” and “forced to acknowledge.” It also omits the fact that before being shown the email, Meadows testified that the only role he played was forwarding information to the campaign. In other words, that paragraph presents an argument. Willis is characterizing the exchange in a particular way. The defense would characterize the exchange differently.
Litigation (including criminal litigation) is essentially competing versions of the same story. Choosing which version to believe is up to the judge or jury.
Here is how the whole “Meadows committed perjury” seemed to have gotten started. First, a well-known legal commentator read Fani Willis’s brief and concluded from her brief (not the transcripts) that “Meadows has a potential perjury problem.” (I am not linking to the posts because I decided not to name names.)
Then, the former prosecutor who often appears on TV saw the “potential perjury problem” post and, in his response, changed “potential perjury problem” to an assertion that Meadows did, in fact, commit perjury:
“Meadows’ perjury in the removal hearing can be both separately prosecuted and be additional proof against him in the 1/6 case. Note: it can be used for both ends by Jack Smith.”
I strongly doubt that the DOJ or Fani Willis will indict Meadows for perjury. We could bookmark this and come back in a year to see if Meadows is ever indicted for perjury. It seems to me that it won’t matter. The issue made for some good television.
I am not persuaded that this method of news reporting is helpful.
Predicting what a court will do
Good lawyers are better able to predict what a court will do than bad lawyers. A lawyer able to predict what a court will do is better able to advise a client about how to proceed.
But nobody can be 100% sure. Sometimes even good judges get things wrong. Juries can surprise us. Sometimes you think you have made a brilliant argument or offered a brilliant observation, and the court just doesn’t buy it.
Also, it can be hard to separate predictions from wish casting. Similarly, it can be hard to disentangle our subjective feelings about an issue from the facts. There is a thing called confirmation bias (a tendency to interpret events in a way that confirms our prior beliefs.)
With some issues, it’s easier to predict what a court will do than others. For example, I was 100% sure that Judge Chutkan would deny Trump’s request to schedule the trial for April 2026 because the request was unreasonable and because there were disingenuous arguments in the defense brief. The Meadows removal issue seems to me less clear.
This, by the way, is the cycle I went through as a criminal defense appellate lawyer representing people who had lost at their trial or hearing and had a right to appeal but couldn’t afford a lawyer:
- Read the record (transcripts, documents filed) and think, “OMG my client did what? What on earth can I do with this case? This appeal is a loser!”
- Spend more time. Read closely. Look for things I missed.
- Get an idea 💡
- Research and write my idea. Refine my arguments.
- Final stage: “OMG I should win this!”
Stage #1 and Stage #5 are both legal opinions.
It’s often hard for nonlawyers to distinguish a legal opinion from a legal fact and this creates a lot of confusion. (What makes this particularly hard is that some lawyers confuse their own legal opinions with legal facts.😂)
“Mark Meadows committed perjury,” is an opinion unless it comes from a judge issuing a ruling or a jury.
Once upon a time, it would have never occurred to me that people would say, “A lawyer said it, so it must be true.” I mean, what about all those lawyer jokes?
An opinion confidently stated is still an opinion, even if the lawyer says it on TV.
We will be seeing lots of these kinds of pronouncements now that we are in the stage of pre-trial motions. Beware of them. Weigh them. Remember that it’s easier to “win” on TV than in a courtroom. It’s easy to say “This person committed a crime!” when the person making the declaration will never have to face a jury on the issue.
Speaking of pre-trial motions. . .
The DOJ election interference case v. the Georgia RICO election interference case
The DOJ case is streamlined. The DOJ indicted Trump for conspiracy charges without indicting any of his co-conspirators, which means they believe they have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt without charging the others beside him. This means that the pretrial motions (due in October) will come from only one defendant, Trump.
The GA RICO case is, in contrast, complex with 19 defendants outlining a wide-ranging broad conspiracy. Fani Willis wants to try all of the defendants together. Her statement of facts weaves all of their stories together, and as she indicated in the recent Meadows hearing, proving that Meadows is guilty under the Georgia RICO act depends on the actions taken by his co-conspirators. This could make it difficult for her to try them individually.
In the flurry of pre-trial motions to date, defendants are trying to split themselves up into smaller groups or be tried individually. Two defendants filed motions demanding a speedy trial, which is their right under Georgia and federal law. The court set a trial date for one for October 23. The other wants to sever and be tried separately. Other defendants are filing motions saying they will not be ready then. Meadows and other defendants are filing motions to have their cases tried in federal court (Meadows, it seems to me, has the strongest argument of the bunch.)
It’s possible, depending on how this shakes out, that Willis could be trying this case in different courts at different times, which may make it harder for her to put the full story in front of a jury.
How will this all shake out? We will find out over the next few months, but I will end with something I quoted a few weeks ago from Scott R. Anderson, Saraphin Dhanani, Yang Liu, and numerous others who wrote this for Lawfare:
First, a couple of nits.
“The GA RICO case is, in contrast, complex with 18 defendants….”
I thought that the GA case had a total of 19 defendants, Trump plus 18 co-conspirators.
“Two filed motions demanding a speedy trial, which is their right under Georgia and federal law. The court set a trial date for him for October 23.”
Shouldn’t the trial date be for “them” not “him” given two of the defendants filed motions filed for a speedy trial, or was only one granted?
I was curious who the former prosecutor/special counsel turned legal commentator you decided not to name was, so I googled it. I am curious though, why are you generally unwilling to name names when you discuss various posts and the like? The posts are public, so whoever posted them obviously wanted to make a public statement. Is this just your way of being careful not to reinforce what you consider a problematic statement?
Your arguments about why this particular pundit perhaps shouldn’t have made such a statement are very illuminating and helpful for those of us not in the legal profession. Of course these days with the flood of information out there, it’s all the more important to note when something is opinion vs. fact. Opinions from some experts often provide helpful information for better understanding an issue, especially when they provide their reasoning and make clear that they are expressing their opinion, but they are still opinions in the end, not facts.
I thought I fixed those! Thanks.
As far as naming names, I figured anyone who wants to know who they are can figure it out.
I quit watching every TV segment and every post, because it is too exhausting. I can’t get my hopes up only to be dashed, again and again.
I just want the bloviating shitgibbon to receive justice for his obvious crimes. Is that too much to ask?
Thanks for the sober take on the perjury issue. The facts are a lot different than what I had picked up elsewhere. And it isn’t the first time that you’ve been the only one pointing that out.
You should ignore my last comment. It wasn’t professional. I just can’t help it sometimes!
This is very frustrating. We watch crimes by these evil people happen on our televisions, read about them everywhere and we also consistently watch lawyers scheme, con and crime to the point that justice has become nothing but a meaningless word. Lawyers seem to be the biggest criminals. Our justice system seems to have lost the justice. Your words seem true but they echo the fact that laws no longer echo the justice a democracy demands.
Very well reasoned. Having been a federal prosecutor for 2 decades, perjury is often an alluring but difficult crime to prove
If any of you are familiar with Fani Willis’ prosecution of Young Thugs/
RICO and of course her famous RICO
case against those educators, you
will know she’s very thorough. The
little we’ve seen of court action in
Georgia so far, shows a very small
amount of the evidence she has in
hand, against all of them.
And I, personally, find it hard to
believe Mr. Meadows frequently
uses the term “we” when referring to himself from his days in Congress.
He was Chief of Staff. Basically the
President’s mouth piece in many
instances. I find it more credible
the “we” he refers to, is the very
former, 4 times indicted, soon to be found guilty, ex President of our
country.
In closing I tend to stay away
from opinions and stick to the
rules of law. Thank you Teri for
an interesting look at the possibility of perjury and whether it can be
proven or not.
A funny thing happens to me when I hear truth. I calm down. I remember that I am a patient man. Then, suddenly, I gain an overview of all relevant matters, which calms me further still. Then I go fishing. Thanks Teri. I’ll mail you a trout.
I think you missed the point of this blog post.
In fact, your comment proves my point and makes me sad. You are being manipulated for clicks and you blame the justice system instead of the people manipulating you.
This is very valuable in pointing out the challenges in bringing any perjury case, and the specific issues with charging Meadows based on the testimony you quoted.
But I’ll bet you were only 99% sure, rather than 100%, that Judge Chutkan would basically ignore the Former Guy’s suggested trial date.
Your comment reminds me that Rahm Emmanuel is reported to have sent a dead fish to one of his political opponents in Chicago; I don’t think it was intended as a compliment.
But it probably wasn’t a trout, certainly not a rainbow trout.
Between the Mueller bashers, the Garland bashers, and the Bragg bashers, the whole lot disgust me. Apparently for some, the media exposure is like crack and they’re definitely addicted. Jumping up and down, waving their hands, “look at me, I’m an expert, and I must be, because I’m on MSNBC!!!”.
You’re right. I am also afraid to make predictions because, as I said, you never really know what a court can do. We’ve all been surprised at times.
Thank you for all you do to keep us on the straight and narrow.
I hear ya, and I’m glad that you stopped watching every segment, and every post. Its just better for your health. So I’ll just offer this as support for that decision, and who knows, some one else may need to hear it. Please do respond if you’d care to.
The wife and I have had simular issues in the past, and realized that self preservation is a big part of being a minute part of a national disaster. In the end, we really have nearly zero affect on any of this, no more than we do during a flood or a hurricaine, aside from our personal interaction with others, being politically active, voting, etc, etc.
But over the course of many many years we’ve come to see that a news anchor’s greatest desire is to amp us up, hoping that if they have some luck with that, then maybe their ratings will tick up a bit, too, which is mostly just job security, for them. And the thing is, they’re all millionaires, and they could not care less if being amped up, is good, for us. We’re not millionaires, so screw them!! Now, we watch an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, and you know Laurie. YOu know. Most of the time, the news doesn’t actually change, much, if at all, in that time frame.
And even if we do catch the news later, having that data in our brains, later, rather than earlier, changes NOthing. Ok sure. Now and then there are big events, but otherwise all that they say, all day long, is that they have BREAKING NEWS!!! , which is almost ALways, precisely the SAme BREAKING NEWS that they were yelling about, 12 hours earlier, in the day! They just want us to believe that they’re not playin’ us, (They are of course, or they’re trying to, at least), and they cherish the idea that they have us glued to the set, all day long, just ALL amped up which is really pretty rude to people who are glued to the set all day long. I think.
So we should all do ourselves a favor, and tell THEm, when we want to be updated on the news of the day, by yelling at them with our remotes. In other words, f**k them! We’ll tell THEM when we want them to tell us something. Or not! They HATe that, which is good cuz then we win.
Our prize is that we get a big part of our lives back. Suddenly, the house and property were more well maintained and the dog even seemed to like us better. ( Deeoogee looked at me one day like, ” I don’t get it, but I DIG it!!”) When the neighbors waved at us, we starting waving back. This was puzzling to them. One of them brought us a caserol.
And our lives are important. Imagine if we went all the way through the coming years, fretting like we used to, and then, just like Nixon, Trump skated!! That would be that, (It will be “that” no matter WHat we do, or say), plus, our home would look like shit, and we’d have LOST, all of that time ! And we’re talkin’ YEARS ! The neighbors, by then, would be forking us off every time they see us, and the dog would have run away. So we’d still be stuck with tfg, plus all of those very, very bad things..
So if someone is reading this other than my wife and Laurie, don’t get me wrong! We absolutely do need to remember, every day, what a pox this clown was and is, and the horrorific damage that he has caused to our once great country, and know that he absolutely wants to do far greater damage to us in the future. We must NEVER forget that. Please Do get out and vote, and do get others out to vote as well. Do everything you can to force the likes of tfg into the depths of history as the nasty and disgusting virus that he is and always will be, but please, take care of yourselves, too.
Your lives are important to all of us, and we’ll still need you, next time around.
; — )
I hate that guy. If I were to send Teri a trout, it would be packed in dry ice and on a bed of roses.
I have scrolled multiple times to make sure I didn’t miss him. Was JJ off duty this week?
Thankyou for your work. It is always clearly researched and written so that even a dumb Civil Engineer can understand and appreciate!
Teri – I wish this blog had a “like” button. I agree with you – all we have is the Law. “Justice” we have to leave to God.
You are right again. I don’t really care who it is. If the person was so smart to be called an “Expert” on TV they would still be working, and not as a talking head. I get the most kick out of seeing “Sr Legal Consultant” or “Sr Political Analyst” under a 30 something face. I have nothing against 30 Somethings, but don’t call them Sr or Expert, quite yet.
Nelson – true, that. Almost every word. All the time you spend watching or listening to the news, reading the papers, looking at websites could be much better spent. Doing the garden (or fishing for trout!) is better for your mental health. Helping a decent person’s political campaign is better for your spiritual health. The only point i disagree with you on is “in the end, we really have any effect on any of this.”
You don’t know that. Remember the guy who took the photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, “The Napalm Girl”? I don’t suppose he thought taking one picture would have such a big impact on ending the VietNam war. I know sometimes it feels like we are using a dustpan and brush to clear up an earthquake – but I like to live like the old hymn “Like a little candle, we must shine, you in your small corner, and I in mine.” If we all do that, there’s a good chance that light WILL come back into our world.
This particular example of legal fact vs. legal opinion reminds me of the telephone game. First pundits and people on social media were simply debating the wisdom of Meadows taking the stand. Later, the discussion morphed into “it was an unmitigated disaster” because, among other things, Meadows looked like a weakling who was afraid of Trump yelling at him. I hadn’t even heard of the claim that he had committed perjury until you brought it up here. Your explanation was helpful because it forced me to “rewind the tape” and see how the discussion evolved.
Thank you Teri.
We need clear thinking like yours.
I don’t watch TV, I read you and others who aren’t looking for TV time.
I hope Fani Willis is a prosecutorial genius. It would be felicitous.
FelicitousFani 🙂
I don’t understand how all those legal opinions are helpful to these pending cases. Might it taint the jury pool? I watch MSNBC and CNN. With the 24/7 news cycle, the speculative nature of the coverage is not NEWS.
The media, as well as any politician who has taken an oath, should repeatedly offer the only fact that matters to the general public – let the case play out in the court of law.
The media could educate the public on the procedure, rather than the “facts” of these cases. You do this every week.
I am frustrated by these procedures because I want Trump to be held accountable for his actions, but I can appreciate the legal system’s provisions to protect the rights of the accused. All these cases take up a lot of action, but until a trial, the public is only subjected to speculation and frustration.
Thanks for all you do to explain the law to non-lawyers.
You, as well as others, state that a speedy trial is required by GA and federal law. If that is the case, why do we so often hear about defendants who laguish in jail for months or years before their trials?
Thank you.
Thank you. I much needed to hear this despite the reality that I already knew it.
Thank you as always!
Thank you, very wisely said – I stopped doom-scrolling twitter (refuse to use the ridiculous new name) after the first couple indictments. Thanks to Terry’s rational, calm commentary, I knew this would take quite a while, and as you wisely point out, I’d be spending years of my life in a fog of doom! I watch PBS NewsHour in the evening, listen to NPR news headlines for 5 minutes at some point in the day, and go about my business. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and I don’t want to take years off my life mired in the bloviating! Reading Terry once a week sums up the week nicely. (Although I miss seeing JJ this week!)
Great analysis as always! I especially liked it because when I saw on social media the allegations that Meadows had committed perjury, I looked briefly into the news headlines to see if I had missed something (was Meadows charged w perjury? if so When Where Why?) and couldn’t find anything at all so…it immediately became clear this was more of the grandstanding by the legal pundits (ok one in particular but others soon pick up on it & too often spread rumors) who are vying for top slot at the networks & were technically inaccurate as maybe, in their opinion – not in actuality, as in charged with by a prosecutor – so all in all, I’m happy to know I made the right choice in igoring this recent legal firestorm! Thank you again Teri! Hope your holiday is awesome 🙂
No one set answer here because no 2 situations are the same but some of the reasons (and it can also be a combination of more than 1 reason): the defendant did not post bail because bail was too high and they could not raise the funds which is the most common reason; defendant refused legal assistance by public defender; defendant has multiple charges in multiple districts requiring a great deal of coordination and it has been determined they should not be released on bond. Mostly one must realize no 2 cases are the same even if the charges are but they are in different jurisdictions as all releases are determined by local magistrates & prosecutors and their decisions.
> It seems to me that “any role” is ambiguous.
It seems to me that in a target rich environment, you should aim for the fatter targets.
> Good lawyers are better able to predict what a court will do than bad lawyers.
“predict what a court _ought_ to do”? e.g. I doubt good lawyers are especially good at predicting Aileen Cannon. I think it’d take a non-lawyerly frame of mind.
Anyway, thanks for this. I’m generally quiet when I agree and I’m mostly quiet. 🙂
Melissa’s complaints echo those of my S.O. as I read to him from your blog in an effort to educate him and reduce both his blood pressure and his pessimism about “justice” that is too slow and complicated to address “our country falling apart.” My position is to look at both sides of an issue and bet on a jury taking seriously their responsibility to judge a defendant’s guilt based on facts presented at trial. (See: “A Fever in the Heartland” for a 100 year-old case where this happened with a defendant who bought off many community members, including those in law enforcement, to increase his power and privilege.) I read your blog faithfully precisely because you share your knowledge and experience to help us better understand what course these trials may take, not to confirm my own biases. That way, I can’t be blindsided by the outcome, whether or not it is satisfying or disappointing to me. Thank you.
My concern exactly.
It is the Me! Me! Me! generation.
(Read my post! Like it! Reply to my post!
Ahh, I feel great now that I have been validated! )
I saw this on the landing page:
Like Button Notice (FREE tariff plan allows to show maximum 1 button(s) per page. Upgrade your website plan on LikeBtn.com. To remove such notices uncheck Show Info Notices chekbox on plugin Settings tab.)
I don’t know what that means, as I’m not a “LikeBtn” client. Perhaps Teri does? Anyway, there was a like button on the FAQ link. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is it important to know where MM considers himself to be a resident? If so, which of the several States in which he registered to vote is his choice of residency?
I your post. Button is needed.
Except, “Justice” we have to leave to Juries.
Dear Teri,
I think one of the key frustrations for the public over Trump-adjacent legal proceedings is in that strange nether region between the overt criming and bringing a prosecution that sticks. Seeing Mark Meadows and others lie in front of judges is but a small subset of the obvious, taunting carelessness with which these guys commit their crimes, both against statutes and against the spirit of democracy. Part of their strategy is to flood the zone with so many execrable acts that it’s really hard to sift through and focus on the ones that are truly prosecutable (fully criminal and adequately supported in the evidence) and worthy of a prosecutor’s attention, while steering past the distractions and shiny objects that to the public seem ready-made for summary judgement and immediate incarceration (which of course goes against everything Teri K. has argued in support of fair judicial practice). Any one improper prosecutorial decision could sabotage the entire proceeding.
But what also plagues my mind is the difference between what actually happened – exactly what any of the conspirators did and said – versus what prosecutors know they did and said. Prosecutors are always working with an incomplete understanding, maybe even a tenuous understanding of the elements of crimes they are investigating, clinging to threads and partial accounts of events that, if misinterpreted, could be construed by a defense as casting reasonable doubt on the entire prosecution. Watching the Mark Meadowses and Rudy Giulianis and John Eastmans, whom we know know every demented twist and turn of this conspiratorial blitzkrieg on our democracy, holding back critical details and justifying their actions and lying to judges and the public, it’s enough to make your blood boil. Just the way they like it.
I feel sorry for prosecutors trying to make their cases, and I also feel sorry for a public that still tries to maintain its faith in the system, even as the system is being sabotaged by “agents provocateurs” whose greatest hope is to dismantle our institutions of fairness and democratic balance and sell them off to Elon and the gang.
I think the defendants in Georgia who are trying to split their cases off from Trump’s are doing so in order to avoid allowing their roles to be characterized as a part of Trump’s conspiracy to overturn the election via sedition and insurrection. I hope the judge in that case does not allow them to do so.
In addition, I think you should have included two points of critical context for Meadows actions, specifically his role was as chief of staff, a federal employee working for President Trump, not as a member of the campaign for candidate Trump. In fact, the Hatch Act law makes any of Meadows actions to assist the campaign an illegal action, since federal employees are not allowed to work for political campaigns. In addition, the federal oath of office makes Meadows participation in Trump’s RICO conspiracy (an additional illegal action) by definition something outside of his duties as a federal employee, meaning the motion to move his case to federal court should fail.
All these cases take up a lot of oxygen [not action]
I’m afraid you missed the point of this blog post.
I like this reply. There’s lots to affirm in what Teri says, but then again, I’m no legal expert-so it only has the weight of agreement.
The Georgia speedy trial law is different from the Federal, and it’s even speedier. I wonder whether defendants in GA are always aware of that right–there are downsides because it cuts short plea negotiations & certain things about discovery. The federal system often stops the clock for lots of reasons, but it’s usually epossible for a defendant’s lawyer to force a trial quickly-but that has the same shortcomings.
I think that people who languish are often in states with weaker speedy trial provisions–also where bail provisions for poor people are awful.
Doesn’t his participation in a conspiracy have to be proved before a judge can rule on the motion to move?
Agree. The point was that Mark Meadows lying in front of judges is a legal opinion and not a fact. It can only be a fact by a ruling of a judge or a jury.
“Was Meadows charged with perjury” was the right question to ask, but I think that still would have been an allegation, not a fact found by a judge or a jury.
Thanks for this.
Well said, Teri.
I’m actually glad Teri’s blog doesn’t have a “like” button. Not having one helps to discourage the sort of knee-jerk, thoughtless reactivity that Teri has correctly argued is one of the main problems with social media. Requiring an actual verbal comment encourages us to slow down and be more thoughtful in our responses. I’ve learned much of value from replies to Teri on this page—much more so than, say, on the birdsite.
Teri, my dad was a state prosecutor in Illinois, then a criminal defense appellate attorney. (I have some trial records with his notes in the margins.) I inherited his brain. I completely understood your point today.
Touche’, Teri.
Thanks.
About Meadows and his removal effort: He seems to be claiming to have been a sort of human automaton social secretary, so that indicting him is like indicting the telephone used for the calls. How convincing do you find that?
Also, if Meadows himself claims his overt speech acts were political in nature, can the judge find they were therefore not part of his job, even without finding him officially in violation of the Hatch Act?
Thank you for all your efforts shining light into the murky darkness.
No, the motion to remove is decided before the trial.
At this point, I prefer to wait to see what the court does. If the court denies Meadow’s motion, everyone will be happy and we won’t have to talk about it any more. If the court approves it, I’ll explain why (and why, if that happens, I won’t be surprised).
Thanks for the kind words Susan. You’ve really got it down. I suspect that you’ll live to one day be a dusty old geezer like me. ( ’24 will be my 16th presidential election that I was old enough understand.) Absorbing the news a bit at a time as you’re doing, allows it to develope a bit, to unfold, and then when we do watch or listen, there is more depth to it so we learn more, and faster, and then we can get back to our lives. The wife and I do watch MSNBC and CNN, and then we bounce over to fox to catch the daily lies, we listen to NPR in the car, but we refuse to fall into the trap of fretting over it all day long. It’s a waste of an otherwise perfect day. Nice ta meet ya pal.
Melissa: I didn’t put your other comment through. If you would like to understand better how the American justice system works, I would suggest reading these two blog posts:
https://terikanefield.com/all-new-doj-investigation-faqs/
https://terikanefield.com/criminallawfaqs/
That may help.
I still don’t understand what a Federal defense is. Does it mean a Federal law covers the crime, or the Constitution provides a defense against the crime?
it means that you have a defense under the Constitution or under federal law. For example, a Fourth Amendment defense is federal. You can raise that defense in either state or federal court, but if you lose, you cam appeal to a federal court.
Teri: “I am not persuaded that this method of news reporting is helpful.”
Me: The former prosecutor’s remarks weren’t news reporting. They were news commentary given after the reporting on Meadows’ testimony. I don’t think one can aptly even call it analysis b/c it lacked an explication such as that which you provided above.
Teri: “In the flurry of pre-trial motions to date, defendants are trying to split themselves up into smaller groups or be tried individually. Two defendants filed motions demanding a speedy trial, which is their right under Georgia and federal law. The court set a trial date for one for October 23. The other wants to sever and be tried separately. Other defendants are filing motions saying they will not be ready then. Meadows and other defendants are filing motions to have their cases tried in federal court …”
Me: What I really don’t understand is how & why our legal system indulges motions such as those, save maybe the speedy trial. Not one of them has a darn thing to do with the nature of the conduct the people of Georgia allege the defendants undertook & all of them seem focused on altering the nature of the charges & trial, not on proving the respective defendants’ actual non-guilt.
It seems to me that if The GA People allege one was part of a racket, then that is the charge one must defend against in GA’s court.
If Thurgood Marshall had not been able to move his racial desegregation cases from local courts to federal courts, he would not have been able to desegregate America’s schools.
Suppose a town of 100 people in a deep red state, all off which were members of QAnon, filed an indictment against Joe Biden for something he did that was casually related to his job as president. Would you want him tried by a local jury?
Be careful. Motions are to create fairness. If you want to get rid of the ability to ask the court for a fair venue, you will hurt the most vulnerable people.
Read my criminal law FAQ page. You can find as my pinned post.
What I was saying is that Mark Meadows’ lies are tempting for prosecution-minded observers but, as you say, probably not worth prosecuting. What seems unusual among all these indictees is that rather than be humble and say nothing that would provoke judges and prosecutors, they seem to be purposely provocative, demeaning and outrageous, untruthful, all in service of discrediting the judicial system and sabotaging their own prosecutions (in hopes of acquittal) should any of those judicial officers rise to the bait.
My second paragraph is a thought about how easily we dip into frustration over the slow pace of prosecution, without appreciating the difficulty of reconstructing a crime narrative from snippets of information amid an active crew of obstructors, liars (like Meadows, above), and saboteurs.
Finally, I feel sorry for prosecutors because they have to maintain decorum in the face of so much taunting and overt flauting of the laws by leaders and high officers, when we know that of all people, it’s those leaders who should be the most careful and set the best example around law-abiding conduct.
You know it’s systemic and intentional when you see it running throughout, from a political base who would support the First Felon all the way up to the Supreme Court. As an official trying to uphold DOJ, as prosecutors and judges do, I can only imagine how disheartening it is to endure such disgrace.
I did not say “to a prosecution minded person his lies are tempting.”
I said that the prosecutors who said he lied are full of crap. I just tried to say it nicely.
If you are frustrated, I would suggest that you stop watching cable news commentators and get away from the screen because you are a victim of rage merchants.
Find my “to do” list on a tab of my blog, find a way you can help save democracy, and stop reading legal commentary.
Americans seem to have become like: “They’re on TV and said they’re an expert so they must be an expert.”
Bar should maybe be a little higher than that, I’m thinking. But then, we seem to have become a nation of people who think watching YouTube videos is “research.”
Ted, I didn’t put your new comment through. There is no point.
You are talking like someone who watches a lot of cable news programs and listens to rage-merchants on social media. Taking a wild guess, you listen to someone like Glenn Kirchner (or others like him).
if my guess is correct, that is the source of your confusion. What you think is “public perception” is the perception of a small subset of people who listen to these “experts.” They are there to engage and entertain you, not educate you.
Stop listening to them and your confusion will lessen.
Having learned from you to read legal documents, I’ve been having a great time reading DA Fani Willis’ letter to Jim Jordan in response to his attempt to use his office to bully her on behalf of protecting a certain former president and current multiple defendant. It’s included in an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (link below).
One of my favorite lines: “Here is another reality you must face: Those who wish to avoid felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia — including violations of Georgia RICO law — should not commit felonies in Fulton County, Georgia.”
https://www.ajc.com/politics/willis-blasts-congressmans-interference-in-fulton-trump-probe/IU5USCA3H5A3RJKTMT2WFCL3VU/
If you raise a federal claim in state court and lose and then appeal into the federal courts where does your claim go in federal court? Does it go through the whole federal court chain? Or is the only place you’re allowed to go is SCOTUS? And can you appeal to the federal courts after your first loss in state court or do you have to exhaust all your state court appeals first?
It goes to the appellate court (circuit court)