Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows decides to tell the truth about Trump

After years as a public servant, Mark Meadows is finally performing a public service.

The former North Carolina congressman and former President Donald Trump’s last chief of staff is reportedly cooperating with special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Meadows has received immunity from prosecution and now admits that Trump was “dishonest” when he claimed to have won the election just hours after the polls closed. Meadows reportedly told Smith’s team, “Obviously, we didn’t win.”

It’s bad enough that Meadows helped perpetuate Trump’s lie, that he set up a phone call with Georgia officials in which Trump asked them to “find” votes to make him a winner there and that he stood passively by as Trump refused to call off his-supporters who invaded the U.S. Capitol.

But it’s made even worse by his writing a book, “The Chief’s Chief,” in which he defended Trump’s actions. He said in the book that the election was “rigged” and that there was “actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze.”

Now, should Trump go to trial, Meadows will have to testify about how he helped Trump spread a falsehood.

ABC News reported that Meadows has told prosecutors there were many times he wanted to resign, but he stayed to ensure that there was a peaceful transfer of power. No, he stayed because he couldn’t let go of his access to power and what he ensured was the continuation of Trump’s false claims about the election.

In Congress, Meadows was among Trump’s most stout defenders. At the White House, he was among his most reliable enablers.

The news of Meadows cooperating broke the same day that Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen took the stand in Trump’s New York fraud case to describe how Trump inflated his assets to obtain loans. Meanwhile, three of Trump’s former attorneys have pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case against Trump and multiple co-conspirators.

The growing parade of Trump associates making deals with prosecutors comes after multiple former Trump Cabinet members and aides, including former chief of staff John Kelly, have condemned Trump as deceitful and incompetent. Kelly said Trump “is a person who has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”

All this atonement adds to the astonishment that Trump is the leading candidate for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination. Apparently the only thing that breaks his spell on so many Republicans is the prospect of disgrace or an indictment.

Meadows’ surrender to the truth is especially symbolic. His brand of politics, a phony patriotism that undermines the nation and its ideals, was based on the deception, nativism and the pandering to prejudice that Trump saw and made his own.

Meadows, who represented the 11th District in western North Carolina from 2013 to 2020, was a founding member of the congressional Freedom Caucus. He helped trigger a federal government shutdown in 2013 and tried to oust then-House Speaker John Boehner. Fittingly, he was succeeded in office by another fake patriot and dissembler, Madison Cawthorn.

The destructive streak that fueled Meadows’ rise endures in the House. Freedom Caucus Republicans helped remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker and obstructed the election of his replacement for weeks. leaving the House unable to act during the Ukraine war and a terrorist attack on Israel that may trigger a wider Mideast conflict.

Meadows made it to Congress and was able to be so extreme because of gerrymandering. If districts were fairly drawn and the voters more politically diverse, maybe there would be fewer charlatans in office and democracy would be in less danger.

Now Meadows, at long last, wants to tell the truth. But his fall should make us question how he rose so high upon deceit.

News and Observer Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com This story was originally published October 25, 2023, 3:05 PM.