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    • Supreme Court ends Mark Meadows’ efforts to move Georgia election charges
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    Supreme Court ends Mark Meadows’ efforts to move Georgia election charges

    Online Niel Posted on

    Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff has argued that federal courts are best placed to hear his immunity arguments.

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    WASHINGTON – Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows lost his bid to move his Georgia election interference case to federal court, where it would have been easier to avoid prosecution.

    The supreme court on Tuesday declined to review a lower court rejection of Meadow’s attempt.

    Meadows, who was indicted by former President Donald Trump and 17 others in what prosecutors say was an extensive conspiracy to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia, argued that the crimes he is accused of committing involved actions that were part of his federal White House job.

    And the federal courts are the proper place to determine how the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity should apply to his case, his lawyers told the justices.

    Georgia prosecutors argued that the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling was specific to presidents, so it did not apply to Meadows.

    And Chief Circuit Judge William Pryor of the 11thth The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote last year that state courts are capable of evaluating any claim of federal immunity.

    In September, a federal judge rejected a similar effort by Meadows to move the criminal charges against him in Arizona to federal court.

    Meadows and a handful of other defendants argue their cases should be heard in federal court because they were federal officials at the time the alleged crimes took place. Meadows testified last year that his actions in scheduling and attending meetings with Trump were part of his duties as chief of staff.

    Federal law allows certain federal officials to move their state cases to federal court—a holdover from the Reconstruction era, when the federal government was concerned about southern state prosecutors and courts harassing federal officials for doing their work.

    But the appeals court found that the statute did not apply to former federal officials because their criminal charges would not affect a federal administration.

    “In contrast, a state prosecution of a former officer does not interfere with ongoing federal functions — for example, no one suggests that Georgia’s prosecution of Meadows impeded the current administration,” Pryor wrote.

    He also said Meadows’ official duties as chief of staff “did not extend to an alleged conspiracy to nullify the results of a valid election.”

    Meadows is accused of racketeering and soliciting Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to violated his oath of office during an appeal January 2, 2021, when Trump asked him to “find” enough votes to overcome Biden’s winning margin.

    The indictment describes Meadows attending a White House meeting with Trump and Michigan lawmakers, sending messages to Pennsylvania lawmakers requesting a memo to “suspend and adjourn the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” trying to observe a non-public audit of Georgia . voting and arranging the Raffensperger call.

    Meadows testified at his hearing in US District Court last year that arranging calls and setting up meetings for the president was part of his job. But prosecutors and judges noted that Meadows offered no limits on what the job entails.

    The Georgia trial has been suspended as the state Court of Appeals considers whether to remove District Attorney Fani Willis from the case, as Trump and others have requested, because of her romantic relationship with another prosecutor.

    The future of the process became even more uncertain after Trump was elected to another term this month.

    Online Niel
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