prosecute him. right? merrick garland has been somewhat restrained in going after many crimes and misdeeds of the trump administration. i think steve bannon gave him no choice because he was so defiant, so contemptuous. mark meadows, by at least sort of play acting like he was going to cooperate, might make it slightly difficult, slightly more difficult to prosecute him, even though prosecution here i think is very clearly warranted. the other piece of this, i think we have to keep in mind, in terms of mark meadows backing out, is that donald trump is reportedly mad at him right now. like, unlike steve bannon, mark meadows is not going to go on to some sort of post-trump oliver north like career as a cult hero of the far right. you know, he s sort of tied to donald trump, and donald trump is really mad at him over this book that he wrote. that revealed shockingly, and it shows how numb we are to the
behavior of the trump administration, that trump probably had covid when he debated joe biden. and also kind of revealed how sick he was, made trump feel like he looked weak, and so there s reasons now for meadows to sort of reverse himself and try to get back in trump s good graces. all excellent points. and you remind everyone that meadows, you know, as far as the public narrative is concerned, meadows dropped a dime on trump in the book. and is trying to kind of have it both ways and maintain the relationship. jill, i m curious what you think of all of the above there. as well as the merrick garland question, because on paper, doj and prosecutors will always say, they just look at the case and make a decision. but michelle raises an incisive counterpoint to that, as she often does, which is yeah, but if they re both defying but meadows has found this way to position himself differently, and he was chief of staff, the
most powerful appointed job in the white house, the type of person merrick garland has been professionally would suggest that he would have more pause about that than indicting bannon. i think ultimately both are equally culpable. i think that meadows has a better claim for executive privilege because he actually worked in the white house. but the privilege falls when it s not related to the job of the president. and i don t think there s anyone who will argue with a straight face that planning a coup, planning to undermine congress from doing its duty as required by law is part of the president s job. so if the conversations that we would be asking about of meadows pertain to that, then executive privilege doesn t apply. if there s no executive privilege, he has no grounds for
vance. good to see you. you write eloquently in the washington post i think that it is necessary reading if for wherever one is on the political spectrum that there are problems all over this department of justice which run contrary to the kind of person merrick garland is. garland is a straight arrow when it comes to the law and justice and he is dealing with a department of justice that has become politicized and he doesn t know where all the land mines might be. it is a difficult situation because of the uncertainty. and this subpoena issue is a great example. we don t really know the truth about what happened. uncertainty doesn t breed trust in the justice department. having lived through the trump administration where the justice department wasn t deserving of our trust, merrick garland has the difficult job of re-establishing with the american people reasons that they can have confidence that when he makes a difficult