Attorneys for the White House chief of staff during Donald Trump’s presidency, Mark Meadows, have asked the US supreme court to move the Georgia 2020 election interference case to federal court.
The petition cites the recent supreme court ruling that granted Trump immunity for any acts deemed official – which came as part of a 2020 election subversion case in Washington DC’s federal courthouse. Meadows’s attorneys claimed that a federal forum was needed to address their client’s actions as the White House chief of staff.
“It is hard to imagine a case in which the need for a federal forum is more pressing than one that requires resolving novel questions about the duties and powers of one of the most important federal offices in the nation,” the Meadows legal team’s petition argued.
That filing is the most recent attempt by Meadows’s attorneys to move the Georgia election interference case from an Atlanta state court to US district court. In December 2023, a three-judge appeals court panel denied their effort to move the case to federal court, ruling that former federal officials are ineligible to move their charges.
Meadows and his attorneys have undertaken that effort in hopes of asserting immunity from prosecution on charges related to unlawfully attempting to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory in Georgia in the 2020 presidential race. If successful, they would affect Fulton county, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of Trump, Meadows and other co-defendants.
The judges on the appeals panel ruled that – even if the transfer process known as removal extended to former federal officials – Meadows did not demonstrate he was acting in his official role as White House chief of staff. The ruling blocked a path for Meadows to assert immunity and other federal defenses.
And it prevented the jury pool from being broadened to areas of Georgia with lower percentages of Democrats while also getting case overseen by a member of the federal judiciary, which is appointed by presidents.
Meadows is one of 19 defendants, including Trump, who were charged last August in the Georgia election racketeering case.
The case’s proceedings have been televised in Georgia state court, and the plan is to do the same for the trial.
“Simply put, whatever the precise contours of Meadows’s official authority, that authority did not extend to an alleged conspiracy to overturn valid election results,” the judge, William Pryor, an appointee of president George W Bush, wrote in the appellate court ruling.
Attorneys for Meadows also requested the supreme court wipe away the appellate ruling and send the case back to the lower courts if they opt not to fully review his petition.
Meadows faces charges that he allegedly entered a months-long conspiracy with Trump and other allies to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia during his winning presidential run in 2020.
Meadows also faces a second charge alleging he sought to persuade the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to violate his oath of office. The charge references Meadows’s involvement in a phone call from Trump to Raffensperger – the top elections official in Georgia – asking him to find additional votes needed for the former president to win the state.
The Georgia election interference case is halted for now as a state appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments in December over Trump’s efforts to remove Willis from the case.
Meadows has also been charged in Arizona over his efforts to assist Trump to overturn election results, along with the former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and 16 others.
Meadows has pleaded not guilty in both the Arizona and Georgia cases.
