PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has denied a request by Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, to move his Arizona voter fraud charges to federal court, the second time he has failed to get his charges removed from state court.
In a ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge John Tuchi said Meadows missed the deadline to file a motion to have his charges filed in federal court and failed to show that the charges against him were related to his official duties as the president’s chief of staff.
Meadows is facing charges in Arizona and Georgia in what authorities say was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor. He unsuccessfully tried to file charges in the Georgia case last year.
While Meadows is not a bogus voter in Arizona, prosecutors said Meadows worked with other Trump campaign members to submit the names of bogus voters from Arizona and other states to Congress in an effort to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat. Meadows has pleaded not guilty to the charges in Arizona and Georgia.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won in Arizona with 10,457 votes.
The ruling sends Meadows’ case back to Maricopa County Superior Court.
Meadows argued in both Arizona and Georgia that his charges should be filed in federal court because his actions occurred while he was a federal employee, serving as Trump’s chief of staff. He also enjoys immunity under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which states that federal law takes precedence over state law.
Arizona prosecutors say Meadows’ election campaigns were not part of his official White House duties.
Meadows tried to have his Georgia charges moved last year, but his request was denied by a judge whose ruling was later upheld by an appeals court. Meadows has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.
The Arizona indictment says Meadows confided to a White House aide in early November 2020 that Trump had lost the election. Prosecutors say Meadows also arranged meetings and conversations with state officials to discuss the voter fraud conspiracy.
Meadows and other defendants are asking for the Arizona case to be dismissed.
Meadows’ lawyers said nothing their client allegedly did in Arizona was criminal. They said the indictment alleges he received messages from people trying to solicit ideas for Trump — or “who attempted to inform Mr. Meadows about the strategy and status of various legal efforts of the President’s campaign.”
In total, 18 Republicans were charged in late April in the Arizona voter fraud case. The defendants include 11 Republicans who filed a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona, another Trump adviser and five lawyers with ties to the former president.
In August, Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to her charges being dropped. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino became the first person convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a felony and was sentenced to probation.
The remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty in Arizona to charges of forgery, fraud and conspiracy.
Trump was not charged in Arizona, but the indictment names him as an unindicted accomplice.
The 11 people nominated to be Republican electors for Arizona gathered in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate declaring that they were “duly chosen and qualified” as electors and asserting that Trump had won the state.
A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted to social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges in connection with the voter fraud scheme.
