Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, has asked a federal court to block his arrest in an emergency motion, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.
Meadows, a named defendant in the sweeping election interference case against Donald Trump and 18 others in Fulton county, Georgia, has requested the case be moved to federal court, saying the charges concern his actions as an officer of the federal government.
Trump’s legal team is also expected to argue that the case should be moved to federal court because he was acting in the capacity of president.
In the Tuesday emergency motion, Meadows asked the court to “protect” him from arrest before a Monday, 28 August, hearing on his request to move the case out of the Fulton county superior court to the district court of northern Georgia.
Meadows asked the court to either grant his removal request or issue an order prohibiting the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, from arresting him, according to the Tuesday motion.
Last week, Willis set the deadline for the 19 defendants to voluntarily turn themselves in to the Fulton county jail, where they would be booked, for noon this Friday, 25 August.
Willis rejected Meadows’ request for an extension on the deadline, according to Meadows’ emergency motion.
“I am not granting any extensions. I gave 2 weeks for people to surrender themselves to the court. Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction. The two weeks was a tremendous courtesy,” Willis wrote in an email on Tuesday morning.
Willis also indicated that if Meadows does not turn himself in by noon on Friday, he would be arrested, writing: “At 12:30 pm on Friday I shall file warrants in the system.”
Meadows was charged with two felony counts, including violating the Georgia Rico Act and solicitation of violation of oath from a public officer, according to Willis’s indictment. Meadows was on the infamous phone call when Trump asked the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” votes to overturn Biden’s victory in the state.
He also received hundreds of text messages on 6 January 2021 alerting him and the White House of escalating violence at the US Capitol and asking Trump to intervene.
Two of the 19 named defendants, Scott Hall and John Eastman, have turned themselves in and were booked at the Fulton county Rice Street jail on Tuesday.
Another two named defendants, Jeffrey Clark and David Shafer, have joined Meadows in making requests that their cases be moved to federal court.
