Ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows granted immunity, tells special counsel he warned Trump about 2020 claims: Sources
Meadows said Trump was "dishonest" on election night, according to sources.ByKatherine Faulders, Mike Levine, and Alexander Mallin
October 24, 2023, 5:11 PM
Former President Donald Trump's final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The sources said Meadows informed Smith's team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump's prolific rhetoric regarding the election.
According to the sources, Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being "dishonest" with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on Nov. 3, 2020, before final results were in.
"Obviously we didn't win," a source quoted Meadows as telling Smith's team in hindsight.
Trump has called Meadows, one of the former president's closest and highest-ranking aides in the White House, a "special friend" and "a great chief of staff -- as good as it gets."
The descriptions of what Meadows allegedly told investigators shed further light on the evidence Smith's team has amassed as it prosecutes Trump for allegedly trying to unlawfully retain power and "spread lies" about the 2020 election. The descriptions also expose how far Trump loyalists like Meadows have gone to support and defend Trump.
Sources told ABC News that Smith's investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office -- a book that promised to "correct the record" on Trump.
ABC News has identified several assertions in the book that appear to be contradicted by what Meadows allegedly told investigators behind closed doors.
According to Meadows' book, the election was "stolen" and "rigged" with help from "allies in the liberal media," who ignored "actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze."
But, as described to ABC News, Meadows privately told Smith's investigators that -- to this day -- he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept now-president Joe Biden from the White House, and he told them he agrees with a government assessment at the time that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in U.S. history.
Under the immunity order from Smith's team, the information Meadows provided to the grand jury earlier this year can't be used against him in a federal prosecution.
That immunity came after a lawyer for Meadows requested that his client be immunized to testify before the grand jury, sources familiar with the matter said. A senior Justice Department official signed off on the request and an immunity order was then issued by U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge at the federal court in Washington, D.C., days before Meadows appeared before the grand jury in March, sources said.
Had Meadows not been granted immunity, prosecutors expected him to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, sources said.
'We did win this election'
Trump was already questioning the integrity of the election months before Election Day. Then, within hours of polls closing on Nov. 3, 2020 -- as Trump was beginning to lose key states -- Trump claimed on national TV that it was all "a major fraud.""Frankly, we did win this election," Trump declared.
Meadows told investigators earlier this year that he's long believed Trump was being dishonest when he made that statement, given the fact that votes were still being counted and the results from several states were not in yet.
Nevertheless, public testimony has shown that in the weeks after the election, Meadows helped Trump vet allegations of fraud that were making their way to Trump from people like Rudy Giuliani, whom Trump put in charge of legal efforts to keep Trump in the White House.
But Meadows said that by mid-December, he privately informed Trump that Giuliani hadn't produced any evidence to back up the many allegations he was making, sources said. Then-attorney general Bill Barr also informed Trump and Meadows in an Oval Office meeting that allegations of election fraud were "not panning out," as Barr recounted in testimony to Congress last year.
Meadows has said publicly that he believed "a number of allegations" still warranted "further investigation," and that he "hadn't reached a conclusion" on the election overall by late December.
Also by then, Trump had run out of legal options. When the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 11, 2020, denied his final court challenge, Trump told Meadows something to the effect of, "Then that's the end," or, "So that's it," Meadows recalled to investigators, according to sources.
Still, Trump wouldn't back down, insisting there was widespread fraud but that the Justice Department wasn't "looking for it," Barr recalled.
While speaking with investigators, Meadows was specifically asked if Trump ever acknowledged to him that he'd lost the election. Meadows told investigators he never heard Trump say that, according to sources.
On Jan. 2, 2021, Meadows helped set up the now-infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, during which Trump pressed Raffensberger to "find 11,780 votes ... because we won the state."
Meadows has said publicly that he essentially introduced everyone on the call -- which is corroborated by transcripts of the call that were made public -- and he has said he was simply trying to help them resolve a dispute over Georgia's election results.
On the call, Trump mentioned allegations of fraudulent ballots hidden in suitcases, which the Justice Department had already taken "a hard look at" and debunked, according to Barr's testimony.
As described to ABC News, Meadows told Smith's investigators that, around that time, there were many times he wanted to resign over concerns that the way certain allegations of fraud were being handled could have a negative impact -- but he ultimately didn't leave because he wanted to help ensure a peaceful transfer of power.
