Yesterday, CNN’s Stephen Collins reported that Trump “absorbed a trio of blows Tuesday that worsened his legal peril and underscored how the 2024 election– in which he is the front-runner for the GOP nomination– will play out in the courts rather than traditional voting battlegrounds. In the most significant development, ABC News reported that Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had met federal prosecutors multiple times and had categorically undermined the ex-president’s narrative about a stolen election. Meadows was the gatekeeper to the Oval Office in the critical days when Trump was allegedly plotting to steal the 2020 election after voters rejected his bid for a second term.”
Well, definitely a duo. Attorney’s Jenna Ellis definitely flipped—sending Trump into a rage about how flipping should be illegal— and Michael Cohen definitely testified against Trump in open court and with the red-faced, furious Trump in the room. But… Meadows’ lawyer warned that most of the ABC News report was wrong, implying that the assumptions about Meadows flipping were incorrect.
No need to make any assumptions about Jenna Ellis. She flipped. “Ellis who blanketed television networks after President Joe Biden’s victory to falsely claim he was elected because of fraud, reached a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors. Ellis on Tuesday tearfully confessed to the felony of aiding and abetting false statements that she and other lawyers told Peach State lawmakers. She was the third former Trump acolyte to agree to testify against the ex-president and others this week. The election subversion prosecution brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is now following the classic playbook of a racketeering case wherein smaller fish are peeled away for reduced sentences to secure their testimony against the alleged kingpin. ‘If I knew then what I knew now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this experience with deep remorse,’ Ellis said.”
Ellis was a comparatively junior figure in Trump’s schemes to overthrow the election, although there is reason to believe she was in critical meetings of interest to prosecutors. Her guilty plea also looks like terrible news for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also served as a Trump lawyer after the election and with whom Ellis worked closely.
Her repudiation of her own behavior marks an ominous omen for Trump because it shows that while falsehoods about election fraud are still a potent political force in the GOP and conservative media, it’s the truth that matters in court. Under the legal system, the former president could face a level of accountability that the US political system, which is still buckling under his influence, can’t match.
…Each of Tuesday’s legal dramas threatened to undermine Trump’s position in separate cases, to which he has pleaded not guilty, and emphasized how the Republican front-runner’s bid to recapture the White House will be shadowed by his criminal liability.
And for someone who has the exaggerated sense of loyalty harbored by Trump— albeit one that mostly goes one way— the spectacle of three former associates turning against him will be especially irksome.
While the crush of legal cases bearing down on him hasn’t diminished his dominance in the GOP presidential race, there are increasing signs that the courtroom pressure is beginning to grate on a former president who, in a lifetime of business, personal and political scrapes, has made an art form of dodging accountability.
… [Trump] is portraying himself as a bulwark against a government that he claims is weaponized against him and his supporters. The idea that he is a political martyr who is being unfairly targeted by the Biden administration— despite 91 charges across his four criminal indictments— may be his only credible campaign tactic. After all, he may be a convicted felon by Election Day in less than 13 months. While that prospect doesn’t seem to faze Republican primary voters, it may be a serious vulnerability among a broader electorate.
Other Republicans are adopting Trump’s “They're not after me, they’re after you” electoral defense against their criminal activities. I’m sure Robert Menendez (D-NJ) will be next.
