Sad! Donald Trump’s Coconspirators Have Started Throwing Him Under the Bus

As Donald Trump has made abundantly, absurdly clear over the past several years, he is obsessed with loyalty, and requires complete and total devotion from everyone in his orbit, or even on the periphery of his orbit, like the loyalty required by a mob boss. Not surprisingly, since leaving the White House in disgrace some three and a half years ago, the ex-president has continued to demand such fealty. But unfortunately for the former guy, it appears the threat of prison time is testing some people’s allegiance to the king.

Politico reports that with four criminal trials on the horizon, “aides, allies, and codefendants” have begun “pointing [fingers] at the former president” in an effort to defend themselves. (Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.) Late last month, for example, an IT staffer at Mar-a-Lago retracted his previous testimony before a grand jury in the classified-documents case and “implicated Trump and others in obstruction of justice…after switching from an attorney paid for by a Trump political action committee to a lawyer from the federal defender’s office in Washington,” Politico reported at the time. Around the same time, three Republican activists who’d been indicted by the Fulton County district attorney’s office for trying to overturn the election in Georgia said they did so at Trump’s direction. And they’re not the only ones singing that tune:

Last week, Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows—also charged in the Georgia case—signaled that his defense is likely to include blaming the former president as the primary driver of the effort..… During a hearing in Atlanta, a defense attorney for Meadows called attention to Trump’s prominent role in what is certain to be a crucial element of prosecutors’ case there: the infamous January 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump demanded that Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, “find” enough votes to declare Trump the winner. Meadows arranged that pivotal call. But after prosecutors played audio of the call in the courtroom, an attorney for Meadows emphasized that his client’s part in the actual discussion was both more minor and less provocative than Trump’s.

“There’s a lot of statements by Mr. Trump. Mr. Meadows’s speaking roles were quite limited,” Meadows’s lawyer, Michael Francisco, observed as he cross-examined Raffensperger, who was called to testify by prosecutors. “He didn’t make a request that you change the vote totals—Mr. Meadows, himself?” Francisco continued. “Correct,” Raffensperger replied. Although Francisco made the point delicately, one could almost hear the screech of the bus tires. Trump, of course, did make such a request—something the defense attorney didn’t need to mention directly since the whole courtroom had just heard Trump’s voice doing just that.

Meadows pleaded not guilty in the Georgia case on Tuesday. As Politico notes, Meadows’s lawyer is unlikely to be the last one to suggest to a jury that Trump was doing most of the heavy-lifting re: breaking the law. He’s also not the only attorney to point out that Trump’s codefendants will probably want to be tried alongside the ex-president to make them look better, relatively speaking. “Strategically speaking, if you are one of the lesser important players, you would definitely want to be in the same trial with Donald Trump. All of the focus is going to be on him,” Scott Weinberg, a Florida attorney, told the outlet. “They don’t want the little guys, they want Trump. You’re always compared to who you’re next to.”

For his part, Trump is presumably not thrilled about his coconspirators claiming they were just taking his orders—but he shouldn’t be surprised by the tactic. As Rolling Stone reported last month, the ex-president is expected to defend himself against election-related charges in part by claiming he was just taking his lawyers’ advice.