The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear an appeal by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, ending his push to move the Fulton County election interference case against him to federal court.
The high court’s decision means a ruling last December by the federal appeals court in Atlanta, which rejected Meadows’ bid to remove the Fulton case, will stand. Meadows had argued that because he was a federal officer at the time of his alleged crimes, a removal statute allowed his case to be transferred to U.S. District Court in Atlanta where he would likely get a more favorable jury pool.
Meadows is one of 15 remaining defendants, including President-elect Donald Trump, charged with racketeering and other offenses for trying to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. The case is now largely on hold while the Georgia Court of Appeals Court decides whether District Attorney Fani Willis and her office should be disqualified from prosecuting the case.
If Willis is allowed to stay with the case, it’s likely Meadows and a number of other defendants could stand trial next year. Legal experts have said Trump will not have to stand trial until after his term of office ends, although Trump’s attorneys are preparing a challenge to dismiss the case against Trump on grounds a criminal case should not be hanging over the head of a sitting president.
Meadows had retained highly regarded appellate attorney Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general, to try and convince the Supreme Court to hear his appeal. In a court filing, Clement asserted that Meadows’ case should be moved to a federal court where Trump’s former top aide could raise immunity claims.
Credit: Andrew Harrer
Credit: Andrew Harrer
But the Supreme Court, without comment, declined to hear Meadows’ appeal.
At an evidentiary hearing before U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, Meadows took the stand and testified that he had an expansive role as chief of staff and that the actions he took following the 2020 election fell squarely within his official duties. These included his Dec. 22, 2020, visit to Cobb County where an audit of absentee ballot signatures was being conducted and his arranging a phone call with Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and another with elections investigator Frances Watson. In a 49-page ruling, Jones flatly rejected that argument.
In its opinion almost a year ago, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the congressional removal statute only applied to current federal officials, not former ones, such as Meadows.
Even if the removal statute applied to former officials, Meadows still loses his attempt to remove his case from Fulton, the appeals court said.
Chief Judge Bill Pryor, who authored the opinion, said an alleged racketeering charge against Meadows “was his alleged association with the conspiracy to overturn the presidential election” and his official duties “did not include superintending state election procedures or electioneering on behalf of the Trump campaign.”
Simply put, Pryor wrote, “we conclude that Meadows’s association with the alleged conspiracy was not related to his office of chief of staff.”
The Georgia Court of Appeals will hear arguments on Dec. 5 about whether Willis’ romantic relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest that should disqualify her and her office from the election interference.
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