A publisher sued former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for allegedly “flatly” contradicting a main claim in his own book: that Donald Trump was defrauded out of his re-election to the presidency in 2020 due to widespread voter fraud.
The lawsuit cites media reports last month that Meadows said Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and a federal grand jury said that “he warned” Trump about any claims of election fraud and “that neither he nor former President Trump actually believed such claims.”
“If these media reports are accurate, Meadows has testified under oath that his book contains known falsehoods,” Meadows’ publisher said. All-season press said in his lawsuit in Sarasota County Court in Florida.
ASP notes that in his 2021 book “The Chief’s Chief,” Meadows had written that “all statements” contained in the book “are true” and that he “made no false statements to the publisher regarding the work”.
The publisher is seeking more than $3 million in the lawsuit, which alleges that Meadows failed to deliver on its promises.
ASP claims it suffered “significant monetary and reputational damage” as a result and removed the book from the market last week. The suit, filed Friday, also claims that public interest in the book “precipitously declined” in mid-2022 after rumors circulated that Meadows was “secretly cooperating with” special counsel Smith.
Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
Meadows was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in August in state court in Atlanta for alleged crimes related to their attempts to overturn Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Meadows has pleaded not guilty in the case, as have Trump and most of the other defendants. But four other defendants, including attorneys Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, pleaded guilty to related crimes.
The ASP lawsuit says Meadows initially signed a deal with another publisher to write her book on January 9, 2021, just three days after a violent mob of Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol. The riot occurred after weeks of false claims by Trump and his allies that he had actually won the 2020 contest.
Only later did ASP obtain the right to publish Meadows’ book and agreed to pay him $350,000 in three separate installments, the suit notes.
ASP says it originally thought Meadows would follow the format of previous books by other White House chiefs of staff, which detailed their “times as gatekeepers to the President of the United States.”
Instead, Meadows “chose to focus on events from the 2020 presidential election to the January 6 attack.”
“A central thesis of the book is that President Trump was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election and that the election was stolen by President Biden through widespread voter fraud,” the suit states.
Chapter 15 of Meadows’ book is titled “The Long Con” and begins with the brief phrase “I knew he didn’t lose” in all capital letters, the suit notes.
In another part of the book, Meadows wrote that Trump was “absolutely right” in saying he did not lose the election.
The suit says that in late 2021, ASP informed Meadows that it would withhold its final payment of $116,666 for the book until the publisher was satisfied that it had not changed its claim according to that Trump was the victim of electoral fraud.
The notification came after reports that Meadows had decided to cooperate to some extent with a House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
In December 2021, Meadows’ lawyers demanded final payment, calling allegations that he was cooperating “specious,” according to the suit. The ASP paid him the final payment two months later, according to the complaint.
On October 24 this year, ABC News reported that Meadows had spoken to Smith’s team “at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which occurred only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath”.
ABC cited sources “familiar with the matter” for this report, which said: “Meadows informed Smith’s team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks following the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voter fraud leveled at them were baseless.”
One day after this report, CBS News reported that Meadows was “cooperating extensively” with Smith’s election interference investigation into Trump.
CBS obtained a statement from Meadows’ attorney, Terwilliger, who said: “I told ABC their story was largely inaccurate. People will have to judge for themselves the decision to air it anyway. “
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