By Andrew Chung
(Reuters) – Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has failed to move his criminal case over the Georgia 2020 election interference out of state court to the potentially friendlier venue of federal court as the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request rejected on Tuesday.
The justices rejected an appeal by Meadows, a former Republican congressman, of a lower court’s decision rejecting his attempt to have his case heard in federal court.
Prosecutors in Georgia’s Fulton County indicted Meadows in 2023 along with Trump and other allies in a sweeping racketeering case, accusing them of conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump won the November 5 US elections and will return to the presidency on January 20. Both Meadows and Trump have pleaded not guilty.
Meadows has requested that the case be heard in federal court under a U.S. law that allows federal officials to transfer cases involving their official duties to state courts. Meadows has argued that the charges against Georgia related to his responsibilities as chief of staff and that he has defenses that can be raised under federal law.
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones rejected Meadow’s bid. The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in December 2023, ruling that the law cited by Meadows “does not apply to former federal officers, and even if it did, the events giving rise to have nothing to do with this criminal action. to Meadows’ official duties.”
Moving the case to federal court could give Meadows a friendlier jury pool because such a trial would come from a larger and more politically diverse area than Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold. Meadows could also argue in federal court that he is immune from state prosecution because the charges relate to actions arising from his duties as a federal official.
Establishing an immunity defense is critical, his lawyers told the Supreme Court in a filing, because it is “the most important protection federal officers enjoy against the whims of literally thousands of state and local prosecutors.”
Contrary to charges brought by federal prosecutors, when Trump resumes his duties as president, he will not be able to resolve a criminal case in state court. But his lawyer has already said he will seek to pause any legal activity related to Trump based on the argument that a president should not face the burden of criminal charges while in office.
Trump and some of his co-defendants have asked a Georgia appeals court to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the lead prosecutor, from the case over her alleged misconduct stemming from a romantic relationship she had with a former sheriff’s deputy.
If that effort fails, the case against Meadows and the other co-defendants could move forward. Legal experts expect that the case against Trump will not proceed as long as he serves a second four-year term as president.
Meadows is a former Republican congressman who served as chief of staff during the last 10 months of Trump’s first term as president.
Prosecutors have accused him of organizing phone calls and meetings in which they say Trump pressured election officials to change the vote count in his favor, including a call in which the then-president urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to get enough to ‘find’ votes to give him the state.
Prosecutors have argued that these actions were not “necessary and proper” duties for a U.S. president and his chief of staff. Meadows has said they were part of his portfolio as Trump’s top aide in the White House.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
