The breaking political news today is that we finally (!) have a new speaker of the House. However, I have been so immersed in this story for the past three weeks that I'm going to take this opportunity to step back from the House GOP drama club for a day and focus on another story that's also been developing quickly. We'll all have plenty of time to discuss newly-sworn-in Speaker Mike Johnson in the days and weeks to come, after all.

While all of this has been playing out in Washington, Donald Trump has been sinking slowly into his various legal quagmires. The most prominent example comes from Georgia, where a total of four of his co-defendants have now turned state's evidence, accepted rather lenient plea deals, and pleaded guilty to various charges. This leaves 14 co-defendants who have not flipped yet -- but still could. That's a lot of other shoes that could drop, obviously (and some of them are very big shoes indeed).

The first person to plead guilty in the Georgia case (bail bondsman Scott Hall) was a fairly minor player, whose testimony probably won't be crucial in securing convictions on anyone else. But the next three were all lawyers who worked in some fashion or another for either Donald Trump or his re-election campaign. First to flip was Sidney Powell, known for her bombastic "I will release the kraken!" promise. Then came Kenneth Chesebro, who was followed swiftly by Jenna Ellis, who were both instrumental in the effort (led mostly by Rudy Giuliani) to convince state legislators and fake electors to somehow wave a magic wand and declare Trump had won their states (even though he had clearly lost all of them).

Powell, Chesebro, and Ellis are an impressive trio to get to plead guilty. They were all given very light sentences (small fines and probation, no jail time), being the first to make such deals (the earliest to flip always get the best deals from prosecutors, which is normal). But what will happen next is going to be interesting to see.

While there are other minor players in the group of Trump's 14 co-defendants, there are also some very big fish. Rudy Giuliani is definitely one of them. He wasn't some bit player in this scheme, he was one of the masterminds of the plot to create fake electors in multiple states in order to muddy the waters when Congress convened on January 6th. He was a driving force behind this effort, and Chesebro and Ellis worked closely with him on it. Their testimony might be incredibly damning to Rudy's case, obviously.

Giuliani has another problem as well -- he's apparently broke. He can't pay his lawyers' bills and Donald Trump is refusing to foot the bill for him. He is also facing multiple court cases -- the Georgia one is just the most serious (being a criminal case). He is being sued for millions of dollars (and even, in some cases, over a billion dollars) for all the defamation he spewed about voting machines and elections officials. So he's got lots of legal bills to pay. Also, if he loses any of these other cases, he'll have to pay out anything his lawyers have left him in his bank accounts, which will probably drive him into bankruptcy.

Could Giuliani be convinced to flip on Trump in Georgia? That's an interesting question. He would avoid a whole bunch of expensive legal bills by doing so, but he might not get such a sweet sentencing deal as the others. Jail time would be a real possibility, one assumes. And any testimony he gives in this case might guarantee him a loss in his various defamation cases.

There's a flip side (if you'll excuse the pun) to that question as well: would the district attorney even offer Rudy a plea deal, or is she more interested in nailing his scalp to her wall in court? Rudy is no bit player, so it'd be a lot harder to make the standard: "We have to flip the small fish to get the bigger fish" argument with him. Plenty of the people convicted of attacking American democracy on January 6th have drawn long jail sentences, so why shouldn't Rudy do the same? He's a pretty big fish in this pond, after all.

On the other hand, Rudy would also be an absolute treasure trove of evidence against Donald Trump. Rudy knows where all the bodies are buried, to use a mob term (appropriate, when all the defendants are facing RICO charges). If he actually did truthfully and fully testify to what he knows, Rudy could be the "smoking gun" in the entire case. That's a pretty big "if," though -- I could also see Rudy having massive memory problems when he gets on the stand: "I'm sorry, I just don't recall...."

Rudy Giuliani's not the only possible next domino to fall. There are others who must be anxiously reviewing everything they ever said in front of Powell, Chesebro, and Ellis, in order to get a handle on what sort of jeopardy they now face. John Eastman, Mark Meadows, and Jeff Clark all spring to mind. Meadows in particular, since he already may have flipped on Trump.

Last night, ABC News ran a scoop: Meadows had already flipped on Trump by testifying to the federal grand jury in the January 6th case, after being granted immunity for his testimony. At the very end of this story is the statement: "[A]n attorney for Meadows declined to comment to ABC News for this story." But then a lawyer for Meadows, George Terwilliger, told CBS News: "I told ABC that their story was largely inaccurate. People will have to judge for themselves the decision to run it anyway." This puts Meadows in a sort of Schrödinger's Cat state of uncertainty: has he testified or hasn't he?

Assuming for the sake of argument that he did take the immunity deal, it would mean Meadows would be a prime candidate for accepting a plea deal in Georgia as well. If he's already testified against Trump once, why shouldn't he do so again? Especially if he is offered the same sort of "Get out of jail free" card from Fani Willis, the prosecutor in Georgia.

John Eastman and Jeff Clark, however, may be in the same boat as Rudy. Meadows is positioning himself (if the ABC report is correct) as being peripheral to the actual scheme to overthrow an American presidential election. He's painted himself as a sort of bystander, just arranging meetings and whatnot, not an actual mastermind of any particular plot. For Eastman and Clark (as well as Giuliani), that is simply not an option. They were at the heart of these schemes to overturn the will of the people.

So what happens next in Georgia is going to be interesting. Some more of the minor players charged may decide the time is right to work out a lenient plea deal, which wouldn't be a direct threat to Trump but would show more momentum for the prosecution. The more guilty pleas the better, in other words. But the major characters will be the ones to watch. Three of Trump's lawyers have flipped on him -- with breathtaking speed. Who will be next? Will there even be a next? Or will Willis decide that cushy plea deals are only appropriate up to a certain level of criminality, and refuse to offer anything short of jail time to the bigger fish?

Notably, the defendants who demanded a speedy trial (which would have gotten underway this week) all flipped. This means Willis won't have to preview her main RICO case before the others are scheduled for trial. And, of course, this case isn't the only one Trump is currently fighting -- he faced Michael Cohen in a courtroom both yesterday and today (the first time in five years the two had been in the same room), and Trump was just hit with a $10,000 fine for violating the gag order in the same case.

What has been a little baffling to me in all of this is that the Georgia case is the only one filed against Trump that doesn't yet have a court date scheduled. Perhaps the defendants who demanded a speedy trial had to come first, for both the prosecution and the court system, but now that that's out of the way there doesn't seem to be anything preventing the judge setting a date for Donald Trump and the other 14 co-defendants to be tried.

Three of Trump's lawyers in this case have already flipped on him and will likely testify against him. Others may be in negotiations for their own plea deals with the prosecutor. These are all body blows to Trump's defense. And the one thing that seems absolutely certain in all this is that Fani Willis is not going to offer Donald Trump any sort of sweetheart plea deal. That is looking more and more certain with every Trump lawyer who flips.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant