Trump indictment TODAY? Mark Meadows FLIPPED? let's separate facts from speculation

here's what we know, and what we don't know

holy shit!

a firehose of Trump-indictment news, near-news and speculation erupted across social media yesterday afternoon and on into the evening. Trump indictment on Thursday! Trump got a target letter! Mark Meadows flipped! for sure, shit is getting realer than real, but there’s a lot of smoke and noise out there right now. let’s try to make some sense of it.

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has Mark Meadows flipped? mayyyyybe.

at about 3:30pm (New York time) yesterday, the UK newspaper The Independent reported that Mark Meadows had flipped and would be pleading guilty to several lesser charges in exchange for limited immunity, and the entire internet — myself included — lost their fucking minds.

but is it true? posssssibly, but we can’t know for sure, because right now, 18 hours later, The Independent is the only source reporting it.

George Terwilliger, Mark Meadow’s lawyer, denied that a deal to plead guilty had been reached, but “but did not address the matter of immunity.”

we do know that Mark Meadows recently testified to a grand jury. but that’s all we know for sure.

it’s anyone’s guess. of all the characters in this drama, Mark Meadows has been the most tight-lipped about his activities.

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is Trump getting indicted today? almost certainly not.

the same Independent article also reported that

The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington, DC grand jury to indict former president Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice as soon as Thursday

“as soon as” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. a prosecutor asking a grand jury to vote on an indictment and a prosecutor bringing that indictment usually doesn’t happen on the same day.

former prosecutor and current lawyer Renato Mariotti tweeted:

I’m seeing tweets predicting a Trump indictment tomorrow. Take those tweets with some healthy skepticism. We have confirmed reports of grand jury testimony today, and it’s unlikely an indictment is returned a day later. Don’t retweet a rumor just because you hope it’s true.

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did Trump get a target letter? fuck yes, he did.

this one’s being reported all over the place, so we really don’t have to worry about its veracity.

Federal prosecutors formally informed Donald Trump’s lawyers last week that the former president is a target of the criminal investigation examining his retention of national security materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort and obstruction of justice, according to two people briefed on the matter.

this should come as no surprise to anyone — Trump has been melting down about it on his worthless app for days now. I wrote about it on Tuesday.

and of course, after whining like a dirty diaper baby about it for days, Trump is now angrily denying that he received any such letter.

which is technically true — the letter was delivered to Trump’s lawyers.

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so that’s where we are as I write this at 10am on Thursday morning.

don’t worry — Donald Trump is going down — but probably not as quickly as we want.

I hope this little explainer helped make sense of all the noise out there.