PHOENIX (AP) — A judge will hear arguments in a Phoenix courtroom Thursday about whether to move charges against former Donald Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows in the Arizona voter fraud case to federal court.
Meadows has asked a federal judge to move the case to U.S. District Court, arguing that his actions were committed while serving as a federal employee as Trump’s chief of staff and that he enjoys immunity under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which states that federal law takes precedence over state law.
The former chief of staff, who is facing charges in Arizona and Georgia over what state authorities say was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor, had unsuccessfully tried last year to have the state charge brought in federal court in a Georgia election subversion case.
The office of Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, which brought the case in Arizona, asked a court to deny Meadows’ request. Mayes said he missed the deadline to ask a court to transfer the charges to federal court and that his campaign was not part of his official role in the White House.
While Meadows was not a bogus voter in Arizona, prosecutors said he 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 power despite his November 2020 defeat.
In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.
Last year, Meadows tried to have his Georgia charges moved to federal court, but his request was denied by a judge, whose ruling was later upheld by an appeals court. The former chief of staff has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.
The Arizona indictment also says that 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.
In their filing, Meadows’ lawyers said that 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, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and four other lawyers with ties to the former president.
In early August, Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to the dismissal of her charges. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino also became the first person convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a felony and was sentenced to probation.
Meadows and the other 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.
Eleven people nominated to be Republican electors for Arizona gathered in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate declaring they were “duly chosen and qualified” to be electors. They claimed that Trump won the state in the 2020 election.
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.
