Trump allies hope Jack Smith’s revised indictment lets them off the hook

New this morning, the revised indictment against Donald Trump is giving his allies new hope they can escape prosecution after the Supreme Court granted broad immunity to Trump for official acts he did as president. Jack Smith removed some references to communications between Trump and federal officials while Trump was still in the white House. That includes former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark and Trump's former white House chief of staff Mark Meadows. CNN's Caitlin Pullen discusses this with me now. How could this affect sort of the state level charges, against Meadows and against Clark? Well, Sarah, it may help them, or at least their attorneys are making quite clear in court filings over the past week that they think this helps them with the way that Jack Smith has filed this superseding indictment, reworded things against Donald Trump in federal court. But, Sarah, are sources. There were several of us where we were talking to to sources across the Trump universe. And there is a sigh of relief for a lot of people now. Jeffrey Clark, his relief is that he's cut out of the federal indictment related to Donald Trump. And so his attorneys are trying to use that in other things where he's trying to keep his bar license. And then Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff, he's cut back in the indictment. There were a lot of things that he had been privy to in the version of the charges against Donald Trump before. Now, he's just in a small part of it. What his attorneys are saying in his state case in Arizona. There's a court hearing coming up on Thursday related to that. They're writing to the court that it wasn't an alleged criminal act by Meadows as chief of staff. He was carrying out his official duties even if the president was engaged in official activity. And so his attorneys are making this bid, that that bubble of official duties around Donald Trump, that should extend to Mark Meadows as chief of staff. And when Jack Smith even rewrote that indictment last week against Trump, it phrased what Mark Meadows was doing a little bit differently. It called him specifically the chief of staff, who sometimes handled private and campaign related logistics for the defendants. So Meadows team is looking to carry that forward as they continue to argue against his state charges in Georgia and in Arizona. And then there's a bunch of other people too affected who are no longer in the indictment and thus may not be witnesses. Ultimately, if and when Donald Trump goes to trial in federal court. Sarah, it has changed a lot of things. This new indictment, because of the Supreme Court ruling, Caitlin Pollens, thank you so much for your reporting. So new this morning. Will Donald Trump's former white House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and ex Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark evade prosecution at the state level thanks to a retooled federal indictment by special Counsel Jack Smith. Will the Supreme Court immunity ruling factor into it? This man you see in the TV screen right now, he might have some of the answers. CNN senior legal analyst, former federal state prosecutor Alma Touch and bureau chief Elie Hoti. Look, so, so Jack Smith put together this new indictment trying to comport with Supreme Court immunity ruling in that Jeffrey Clark who's right there, and that's Mark Meadows. Mark Meadows right there. And Jeffrey Clark, who was there a second ago. There he is right there, not mentioned nearly as much as as unindicted coconspirator as basically why weren't they mentioned. And what does it mean for them elsewhere? So the first thing we need to say whenever we are discussing immunity is this is all brand new. The whole notion of criminal immunity is now two months old and it takes years before we get to fully flesh these things out. One thing we do know for sure is that the main beneficiary of immunity is the president, or in this case, the former president. What we don't know, and we're in the process of figuring out is how does it impact other people. And if we look at the new indictment, Jack Smith returned last week, one of the main changes is he essentially erases Jeffrey Clark from the Justice Department and Mark Meadows from the new indictment. In fact, in the first indictment, Jeffrey Clark was listed as Coconspirator for CC four. If you look at the new indictment, there is no CC four. Just goes one, two, three, five, six. And so what Clark and Meadows are now trying to do is say, well, if immunity protects the president from being prosecuted, it also protects us. Remember, they're being prosecuted in the state. So they're trying to use the immunity ruling to their own. And just to be clear. Jeffrey Clark, the Supreme Court basically said anything Donald Trump did with the Justice Department that falls under immunity. Right. And so Jeffrey Clark is using that to say I cannot be prosecuted, right. He's currently under state level indictment in Georgia and in Arizona. And also Jeffrey Clark's using that to fight back against efforts to remove his bar license. He's saying, hey, Supreme Court just said dealings between Donald Trump and DOJ. That's me, Jeffrey Clark. Those are off the table criminally. But there is a fair question. It's clear that immunity is intended to benefit and protect the president. It's not entirely clear that it's intended to be a windfall for the other guy in the conversation. That's one of the things we'll learn in Jeffrey. Jeffrey Clark, Jack Smith could argue with Mark Meadows in particular that the white House chief of staff also plays a campaign role. Right. And suggested there was some Georgia interaction that was campaign related there. Yeah, that's the key dividing line was the conduct an official act or was it a private campaign act? And he goes out of his way. Jack Smith in the new indictment to say everything that happened was unofficial. That's why, for example, Jack Smith in the first indictment, calls Donald Trump the 45th president of the United States. In the second one, he doesn't he's not trying to insult the guy. He's just saying it's all private act. Very quickly tomorrow, federal Judge Tony Chuck can hold this hearing in the federal election subversion case. This is kind of a big deal in the sense that we haven't been in this courtroom in a long time. It's been a long time since we've had a live court session in front of a judge, Chuck. And it looks like Donald Trump himself will not appear. That's why yesterday he entered, on paper a not guilty plea. Usually you do that if the defendant, Donald Trump, is not going to physically appear. But what the parties are going to do, Jack Smith's team will be there, Trump's lawyers will be there. They have to figure out what did they do now? How do they now take Jack Smith's new shrunken down indictment and go through the process of arguing what can stay in it and what should come out? Because Trump's team, to be clear, they're happy with the reduced indictment, but they're not satisfied their position is not okay, fine. Let's go to trial. Their position is all of this is immune. All of this indictment has to go away. And now they have to figure out how are we going to go through this. And decide what's in and what's out, judge Chuck and ultimately has to make the call there much more tomorrow as this happens. Thank you so much.