Mark Meadows reportedly testified before grand jury in special counsel's Trump probe
Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump's final White House chief of staff, has testified in front of the federal grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation of Trump, two people familiar with the matter told The New York Times.
Smith was appointed in November to oversee the Department of Justice's probes into Trump's attempts to hold onto the presidency after losing the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House. The Times said it is not clear when Meadows testified or if he was asked about one or both of the cases.
Meadows became White House chief of staff in March 2020, and was seen as a key witness who could share insight on Trump's actions and state of mind before and after the 2020 election and interactions he had with Trump allies. He also served as one of Trump's representatives to the National Archives, and has knowledge of the archive's efforts to retrieve about two dozen boxes of material Trump took in January 2021 when he left the White House, two people briefed on the matter told the Times.
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George Terwilliger, a lawyer for Meadows, told the Times that "without commenting on whether or not Mr. Meadows has testified before the grand jury or in any other proceeding, Mr. Meadows has maintained a commitment to tell the truth where he has a legal obligation to do so."
In May, people close to Trump told CNN that the former president's lawyers haven't been in contact with Meadows and did not know if he was cooperating with the special counsel probe or was a target of it himself. "No one really knows what he's doing," one Trump adviser said.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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