Former President Donald Trump suffered a trio of blows in the past 36 hours that political observers and legal analysts say may have put him in legal peril.
Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was reportedly granted immunity by special counsel Jack Smith. The word is he met with federal prosecutors a number of times and told them he did not believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that Trump was being dishonest in claiming victory.
In another damaging twist, former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis reached a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors in the elections case.
Third, Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, known as The Fixer, faced off in court with Trump in a case where prosecutors are trying to end Trump’s ability to do business in New York.
Curtis Fallgatter, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville, shared his take on these developments Wednesday on The Morning Show. He said the plea deals and promises to testify significantly enhance Trump’s legal exposure.
“You’ve got lawyers, of course, few folks are closer to a particular defendant than their lawyers in terms of discussing legal issues,” Fallgatter pointed out.
He said the three lawyers who have taken plea deals were all involved as architects in the conspiracy that’s been alleged in Georgia and Trump’s federal indictment.
“Those three lawyers were involved in the three key prongs of the alleged fraud regarding the election. There was the stolen votes false claims, there was the false electors they were going to set up, and of course, then there was a plan for (former Vice President Mike) Pence to not certify the election,” Fallgatter said.
Meadows might be Trump’s biggest legal nemesis. He was an insider and architect of much of what went on with the administration.
Fallgatter said the lawyers were all sentenced to probation for cooperating. That’s not something that would be offered to Trump, he said.
“He’s going to go to trial, so if he gets convicted, he’s certainly looking at some prison exposure in both state and federal courts, but this will be tied up in the courts for quite some time,” Fallgatter said.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to rally support on the campaign trail and at one rally in New Hampshire compared himself to Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in South African prisons before emerging to lead the nation out of decades of apartheid rule.
“I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela, because I’m doing it for a reason,” Trump said.