Jack Smith Zeros In on Mark Meadows in New Donald Trump Indictment

Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff, has been inserted into a key part of the new superseding indictment against Donald Trump.
The new indictment has a greater focus on Trump’s actions in Georgia, where Meadows and 18 others were indicted on a charge of election fraud. Meadows has also been indicted in Arizona on election-fraud charges. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Newsweek sought email comment on Wednesday from attorneys for Trump and Meadows and from the office of special counsel Jack Smith.
The previous federal indictment reads: “On January 2, four days before Congress’s certification proceeding, the Defendant and others called Georgia’s Secretary of State. During the call, the Defendant lied to the Georgia Secretary of State.”
This has been replaced with: “On January 2, four days before Congress’s certification proceeding, the Defendant, his Chief of Staff—who sometimes handled private and others called Campaign-related logistics for the Defendant—and private attorneys involved in the lawsuit against Georgia’s Secretary of State called the Secretary of State. During the call, the Defendant lied to the Georgia Secretary of State.”
The new indictment emphasizes that Meadows handled “private” and “Campaign-related” logistics to show that the interactions could not be considered core presidential acts under the Supreme Court’s July 1 presidential immunity ruling.
The new indictment brings Meadows into the now-famous phone call to the Georgia secretary of state, who repeatedly sought to debunk Trump’s conspiracy theories.
During the conversation, Trump said he needed to “‘find’ 11,780 votes, and insinuated that the Georgia secretary of state and his counsel could be subject to criminal prosecution if they failed to find election fraud as he demanded,” according to both the indictments.
Trump was indicted on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly said the case is part of a political witch hunt.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on July 1 that presidents have broad immunity for official acts. The court said that presidents have absolute immunity for core political acts and have some immunity for other acts committed as president, but no immunity for strictly private conduct.
It also ruled that official acts cannot be used as evidence if taking a case against a president for unofficial acts, a part of the ruling that is highly relevant to the Trump case.
The new 36-page indictment still includes the same four criminal counts but has a much greater emphasis on Trump the candidate, not the president.
In October, 2023, ABC News said that Meadows was granted immunity to speak to Smith’s team and had spoken to them at least three times that year.
However, Meadows was indicted in Arizona in 2024.
If federal authorities can convince Meadows to testify against Trump, it would be a major addition to their case.
The former president has praised Meadows on social media and has favorably contrasted his lack of cooperation with that of Jenna Ellis and other Trump supporters who have taken plea deals and cooperated in the Georgia case.