Meadows’ 'everything I do is official business' defense unlikely to succeed: House January 6th counsel

12 September 2023

As ex-President Donald Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows works "to avoid a state court prosecution in the Fulton County 2020 election subversion case" according to CNN, criminal defense attorney and House Jan. 6 committee lead investigator Timothy Heaphy shared his thoughts on what the ex-Trump staffer's next steps should be.

Meadows is one of the 18 individuals indicted alongside Trump last month by a Fulton County Superior Court grand jury on racketeering charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

During Tuesday's episode of MSNBC's Deadline: White House, host Nicolle Wallace noted, "It seems like the body of political/coup plotting activities is pretty vast for Mark Meadows."

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Heaphy replied, "Yeah, absolutely. And look, his interpretation of this statute would essentially make any White House chief staff, and any president, essentially immune from prosecution, right, it can't be that everything you do as White House chief of staff, because it's within your official authority, is somehow protected and can't be touched by state officials. There's a limiting principle. It has to be appropriate. It has to be consistent with your official responsibility, and Meadows did not show that. The judge found, when questioned about the scope of his authority, Meadows was unable to explain the limits of such authority. That's really telling.

The expansive view of 'Hey, everything I do is official business,' is just not consistent," Heaphy said. "And by extension, Nicolle, I think where you're going here is 'Does that have implications for a similar motion by the former president and others?' Absolutely it does. The same analysis will apply to a similar motion by the lead defendant in that case that everything he did, similarly was within his official function as president of the United States, and the judge will have to go through the same analysis."

Wallace then asked, "Based on what you're seeing in these rulings, and some of Meadows' early legal failures, the first pile-up of failures that his highly regarded attorney has stacked up so far, where do you think this is heading? Where do you think the Georgia cases are heading?"

Heaphy replied, "Yeah, they're headed to the 11th circuit, as, you know, your intro here indicated. The 11th circuit will consider it quickly. I do think like the trial judge, the 11th circuit will likely expedite consideration of this. I don't know that they'll stay, the state court proceeding, there's a fundamental question as to whether this is an issue that is appealable or should in any way impact the steady progress of the state case. You could reserve this for the potential appeal of the state case and continue to appeal the trial judge's ruling while the case goes forward. I expect Meadows to use every possible appellate remedy that he has. But as he loses, as you said, there's increased pressure on him to go to plan B, which is to tell the truth to the people of a trial jury, not just a grand jury, about everything that happened, with respect to the multipart plan to disrupt the joint session and prevent the transfer of power. He has a very powerful card to play, and as he keeps losing, there's more and more pressure to play that card."

Wallace asked, "Do you think he has still not fully cooperated and shared everything he knows with Jack Smith?"

Heaphy replied, "I doubt it. I don't know. I mean, I think from the fact that he's charged in a state case suggests that he has not been fully cooperative. this is usually an all-or-nothing thing, and as you said, he's got very experienced counsel and the advice almost always is look, you're either in or you're out. You're cooperating fully or you shouldn't open your mouth, right? You can't go halfway. So my guess is, he has not cooperated fully because he's been charged in Georgia. He may yet be charged in federal court. As we've discussed, the fact that Jack Smith has issued one indictment against the former president does not preclude the possibility of subsequent indictments against coconspirators or others. My guess is no. I don't know that for a fact. I suppose there's a way that he could have sort of parsed it issue by issue, but generally, it's an all-or-nothing thing, and the indictment suggests it was not sufficiently thorough to get them out of exposure."

Watch the video below or at this link.

Lead Jan. 6 House committee investigator on Meadows (9.12.2023)youtu.be

View CNN's report here.

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