A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a bid by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move his Georgia election case to federal court, upholding a September ruling that determined Meadows' reported actions in the racketeering case were not connected to his official government duties.
In August, an Atlanta grand jury indicted Meadows, former president Donald Trump, and 17 other co-conspirators on felony racketeering charges over Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. Following the indictment, Meadows implored a federal court to intervene after Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis refused his request to delay arrest. The former top Trump aid and his lawyers have argued that Meadows is "differently situated" from the other alleged co-conspirators because of his status as a former federal official, purporting that the charges brought against him in the indictment are related to his time in a federal role, making him "immune" from local prosecution. "Absent this Court's intervention, Mr. Meadows will be denied the protection from arrest that federal law affords former federal officials," Meadows' lawyers wrote to U.S. District Court Judge Steven Jones at the time.
