President Donald Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows may be the latest defection from Team Trump after offering up the possibility that he would point the finger at his former boss during a felony racketeering indictment hearing.
Meadows and 17 other co-defendants were charged with racketeering amid claims that they attempted to overturn the state's 2020 presidential election. At his hearing last week, Meadows' legal team signaled that their primary defense strategy may involve blaming Trump as the leader behind the team's efforts to disrupt the election, according to Politico.
Meadows was quite active in Trump's plan to overturn the election, having reportedly arranged a now infamous phone call where Trump implored Georgia's secretary of state to “find” 11,780 votes in its favor. Meadows also sent out an email pressuring Republicans in the state to sign slates of fake pro-Trump electors.
Meadows was also questioned on why he was complicit in the scheme in the first place. His response was that he was simply trying to avoid incurring the wrath of the then-president.
Meadows joins other former allies of Trump who have started to distance themselves from the former president. In July, a Mar-a-Lago employee named Yuscil Taveras changed his story in the course of a legal investigation into Trump's mishandling of classified documents. His previous lawyer, who was appointed by Trump, was replaced by a new public defender who suddenly presided over Taveras' swift recanted testimony.
It's believed that former Vice President Mike Pence and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani are also considering turning against Trump. Pence made news when he said he had no knowledge of documents declassified by Trump during the investigation. Giuliani also met with special counsel Jack Smith in June to answer questions about his role in a potential investigation into Trump. Giuliani's presence raised suspicions that he too was considering trading information for his own freedom.
At this moment, it is still too early to tell what will become of Mark Meadows' decision. If he is willing to become a witness against his former boss, that could prove to be a fatal blow to Trump's defense against his current legal woes. Whether other once Trump-loyalists follow in his footsteps is still something that remains to be seen.