Mark, you cant possibly think were going to pull this off. That call was crazy. He looked at me and started shaking his head, no, cass. He knows its over. He knows he lost. But were going to keep trying. There are good options out there still. Were going to keep trying. Cassidy hutchinson talking about mark meadows and tonight, there is blockbuster new reporting that meadows has been granted immunity to testify under oath about trumps efforts to overturn the election. Also tonight, a Tearful Jenna Ellis apologizes for her role in the Georgia Election interference rico crimes. Agreeing to tell prosecutors and a jury all that she knows about the trump gangs illegal activities. Plus, a third republican Speaker Designate down the drain today and a search for the fourth which is not a joke anymore. Its a disgrace. We begin tonight with breaking news. A potentially explosive development in jack smiths federal case against donald trump and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Abc news is reporting mark meadows, Trumps White House chief of staff, was granted immunity by the Special Counsel in exchange for his testimony under oath before a grand jury. Abc reports that according to sources familiar with the matter, meadows has spoken with smiths team at least three times this year. And reportedly told them that he had warned the former president about his election lies. Abc reports, quote, the sources said meadows informed smiths team that he repeatedly told trump in the weeks after the 2020 president ial election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless. A striking break from trumps prolific rhetoric regarding the election. According to the sources, meadows also told the federal investigators that trump was being dishonest with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on november 3rd, 2020, before final results were even in. Obviously, we didnt win, a source quoted meadows as telling smiths team. In hindsight. Nbc news has not confirmed the reporting but the testimony from meadows, one of the people closest to trump at the time, would be Critical Evidence in smiths case and his ability to establish proof beyond a doubt that trump knew he lost and tried to overturn a democratic election anyway. Im joined now by democratic congressman adam schiff of california. This seems to me, congressman schiff, to be the big one because mark meadows was the closest person to trump in helping him overturn the election. Your take on this news from abc . Well, i think it is very big news. In a way, its not surprising. People never expected mark meadows to be a steve bannon, you know, gleefully riding into jail on behalf of donald trump. That is not mark meadows. He never signed up to go to jail. He was carrying out Donald Trumps dirty work every day, but Self Preservation has kicked in. And it appears he is cooperating. The challenge with him is hes written a book which was touting all the trump lies. Hes told a lot of the trump lies himself, so he is not a perfect witness by any means. But nevertheless, having him be able to confirm conversations, having him be able to share firsthand information about what donald trump knew and saw, any acknowledgment of his loss of the election privately while trump was out publicly telling the big lie, all of that is still going to be very useful for prosecutors. You mentioned the book, and hes now allegedly, this is according to abcs reporting, admitted he doesnt even believe the stuff in his book. In terms of his usefulness to prosecutors you did mention the book. The fact he is now saying he published a book, presumably took an advance and payment from the publisher and now is telling investigators he doesnt believe whats in the book, how does that taint or impact him as a witness . It will certainly impact his credibility. You can imagine if he were called as a witness by jack smith to testify about what trump did and said, he would be impeached with his own words in his book, which is why youre going to need corroboration for what meadows is saying, other means of proof. Still useful, still important. Prosecutors will make the case as they often do in Organized Crime Cases that crooks surround themselves with other crooks. And youre going to have to rely on imperfect witnesses to tell the story. For someone that close to trump, in all the meetings, to essentially have flipped and be willing to talk is significant. I do think more valuable witnesses are people like cipollone, the white House Counsel, and others that dont have quite as strong a taint as mark meadows. But nevertheless, this is an important development. You add to it these other lawyers surrounding trump, the Sidney Powells, jenna ellises, chesebros and others, and the walls start closing in on donald trump. Indeed, and of course, jenna ellis now also taking a plea. Let me let you respond to that because now you do have somebody who was in supposedly this High Level Team of the strike force, they called themselves. Now two of the three of the members of the supposed strike force, Sidney Powell, and jenna ellis, have pleaded guilty. For donald trump, this does seem pretty dire. It does. You know, these are basically i think they were referred to by the white House Counsel lawyers as the clown car lawyers. You know, the team there was team normal and then team clown car. These were members of the clown car along with giuliani. I think both donald trump needs to be worried about them providing states evidence, but also Rudy Giuliani needs to be concerned. These were a couple of his righthand people. And you know, its all cumulative. You can use them to corroborate Documentary Evidence. You can use them to set the time and place of other meetings. Theyll provide insights you cant get from others. So its just adding to the body of evidence. For those who wondered why is the Fulton County d. A. Indicting 19 people in the same indictment, you cant possibly try a case with 19 people. You cant, she doesnt have to anymore. Every day, every week, more people are pleading guilty. And theyre going to be taken out of the trial and be added to the stable of witnesses. Absolutely. Let me read a little of this reporting on whether trump acknowledged he lost. This is important to his dens while speaking with instators, meadows was specifically askedf trump ever acknowledged to him that he lost the election. Meadows said he never heard trump say that, according to sources. What do you make of that . Well, i think in that reporting as well, there is an acknowledgment by trump when the Supreme Court rules against him, well, thats it. Im done. But he wasnt done. And he went on to challenge the election in other ways. And this is what you get with mark meadows. Youre going to get kind of a little bit on this side, a little on that side, that is sort of how he conducted affairs in the white house. Telling each Different Group that appeared what they wanted to hear. And i think were seeing more of this in the reporting about his testimony before the grand jury. But its very characteristic of who he is and that is quite chameleon like, which does make him challenging as a witness. Not without value potentially with significant value, but certainly not problemfree either. As you just mentioned, part of the abc, when the Supreme Court ruled on december 11, 2020, denying the final court trial, trump said thats it, thats the end. Theres also this reporting from abc that meadows h allegedly told investigators that trump seemed to grow increasingly coerned as he learned about what was transpiring at the capitol and was visibly shaken when he heard that someone had been shot there. Your thoughts on that. Well, thats a new insight that we havent heard. We have certainly seen and heard testimony about how cavalierly he was watching these events unfold in the dining room, you know, calmly taking this in on the television. While people kept coming in and pleading with him to do something. And some of the most powerful testimony was that when meadows was being pushed to get the president to do something, to call it off, there was the response, well, you know, you heard what he said. Essentially words to the effect of, he thinks pence deserves it. And so being able to get meadows on the record, we have this conversation second hand from others, being able to ask meadows about that conversation and others will be really useful to prosecutors. Let me play Cassidy Hutchinson who was on with ari melber Just A Little while ago. This is what she had to say and her initial reaction to meadows apparent cooperation. In my experience, mark was sort of all over the board in some ways. He would privately admit to me sometimes that the election, that we had lost the election, or sometimes he would privately admit to me that trump had said we had lost the election. But mark also was a key player in bringing in characters like Sidney Powell and like jenna ellis. In my experience, again, he would at times acknowledge what i have read in the abc report. The all over the place, you know, sort of status of mark meadows even came out in the January 6th Hearings where he sort of catatonic when the violence is happening, and says as you said, you know, he doesnt want to do anything. Trump doesnt want to do anything, and he thought pence deserved it. Cassidy hutchinson also says that mark meadows burned so many papers after the 2020 election that it left his office smoky and even prompted his wife to complain that his suits smelled like a bonfire. That to me sounds incredibly damning. Getting an Immunity Deal when you might have been burning evidence seems odd to me. Do you think that at some point he will be prosecuted either by georgia or by someone else . You know, i really cant say. I really dont know he is in georgia, i should say. Chameleon like, evade prosecution by cutting deals. That testimony from cassidy, as the former chair of the intel committee, was alarming to me at the time. Its alarming to me today. We were really never able to get to the bottom of what he was destroying. And i would hope that as a part of his cooperation, we get new insights on that. He might have important value, for example, in the maralago documents case. He might be able to shed light on how some of the documents got there. His conversations with the president , or warnings that were made to him and the president. But for the sake of national security, i hope that any deal would also require him to be truthful about that. Final point on that is, would it make sense to have a deal with somebody involved in that kind of conduct . Really depends on the value of their testimony, and presumably, if smith gave meadows immunity, it was either because it would be difficult to prosecute him or because the value of what he was getting was so significant, it outweighed the benefit of bringing him to justice. And of course, i misspoke, of course, he is already being prosecuted in georgia. Hes on the hook for that. Congressman adam schiff, thank you very much. Up next, former trump lawyer jenna ellis learns the high cost of doing trumps bidding as Michael Cohen can tell you, it never ends well. The reidout continues after this. [man struggles] i need some sleep. [man relieved] if you struggle with cpap, you should check out inspire. Inspire. Sleep apnea innovation. Learn more and view Important Safety Information at inspiresleep. Com today was another chapter in the Cautionary Tale of what happens when people with respectable careers decide to hitch their wagons to donald trump. First, in new york today, trumps former fixer Michael Cohen testified in trumps civil fraud trial. Trump was in the courtroom, the first time the two have come facetoface in five years. Cohen epitomizes the Cautionary Tale. He once said he would take a bullet for trump. What did that get him . Time behind bars to say nothing of the Death Threats for cooperating with authorities. Of course, cohen is hardly alone. The list of former Trump Lawyers with rap sheets and court dates is a mile long at this point. In a georgia courtroom today, one of trumps former campaign attorneys jenna ellis pleaded guilty in the states 2020 election interference rico case. She becomes the fourth georgia codefendant to take a deal. And the third trump lawyer to do so, following Sidney Powell and kenneth chesebro. In return for pleading guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, ellis will serve five years probation, pay a 5,000 fine, do100 hours of community service, write an Apology Letter to the people of georgia, and cooperate fully with prosecutors. That is likely where prosecutors see her value because she was an insider, part of Trumps Campaign legal team, and can speak to the conversations that took place. She was there when Rudy Giuliani she was there with Rudy Giuliani at that Infamous PressConference Following the 2020 election where hair dye was dripping down his face faster than they could spout out their wild factfree claims about widespread voter fraud. She traveled with giuliani to contested states to urge lawmakers to reject their own states votes. She also took it upon herself to write multiple mes claiming that mike pence had every right to refuse to count the electoral votes from certain states and she was a regular on cable news, pushing the big lie and other Conspiracy Theories surrounding the election, none of which were true, and she knew it. She admitted that earlier this year when she was censured by the Colorado State bar. She admitted again today and tried to claim it was she who had been duped. I relied on others including lawyers with many more years of experience than i to provide me with true and reliable information. What i did not do but should have done, your honor, was make sure the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true. If i knew then what i know anyhow, i would have declined to represent trump in the post election challenges. Joining me now, Barbara Mcquade, professor at the university of michigan law school, and Charles Coleman jr. , former brooklyn prosecutor. Barb, lets start with the attempt by jenna ellis to essentially say she was listening to higher level lawyers. Jenna ellis was a member of what they called the elite strike force. Jenna ellis, Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani. She presented herself as a constitutional scholar, which is how she would get booked on fox and other rightwing media, presenting herself as an expert. Can she now claim to be essentially someone who was duped . Well, i suppose anyone can claim that. My guess is in the recorded proffer that she provided to prosecutors, she provided a more Fulsome Admission of her own guilt and information that she can share with the Prosecution Team and to testify to at a trial. She got a good deal. Shes pleading guilty to a felony, but no prison time, and so i imagine that prosecutors first listened to that proffered testimony and then assessed its value before allowing her to plead guilty to this deal. So i imagine that she has information about Rudy Giuliani, maybe others on the team. And one thing that make her a little different from Sidney Powell, who trump himself referred to as, quote, crazy, you know, jenna ellis doesnt have that same baggage. She might be a more perhaps less well known, but maybe even more valuable cooperator than some of the others. We know, charles, she had been complaining of late that her legal bills were mounting and not being paid for by donald trump. So she did seem to be slipping. I dont think its super shocking she would plead out. But lets talk about the layers of falsehoods that went into her plea deal. Credibility this is the Washington Post. Lots of useful false things we offered up, having the effectf other false things look useful and make the original false things more useful still. A blizzard in a snow globe held in Donald Trumps hand. Shes claiming that she didnt know any better. She was just listening to other people. But she was the one writing memos saying what the Vice President of the United States could legally do, which were also crimes. Your thoughts on her value as a cooperating witness. Well, joy, in response to what you were talking about, the two worries we all need to be mindful of are due diligence. As an attorney, as someone advising a client in that position, she has a responsibility to make due diligence, and the fact that she didnt and she acknowledges she didnt pretty much does not give her any cover or leaves her with no cover around the notion that you try to move forward with this lie. You knew or should have known that it was a lie, and you did so anyway. So on those grounds, shes not going to have much sympathy when it comes to that. But on a larger scale, to your question, joy, the issue tha