Judge poised to rule on ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows’ push to remove Georgia election interference case to federal court – Yahoo News
A federal judge is poised to rule on the effort by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to remove his part of the Georgia election interference case to federal court.
U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones is expected to rule at any time on whether former President Donald Trump’s top lieutenant should be tried in federal court, where he might be able to get the conspiracy charges tossed altogether.
Meadows says his case should be heard in federal court because he was acting as a federal employee when he allegedly helped Trump plot to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
Prosecutors counter that he was acting as a political associate of Trump and has no legitimate defense in federal court because government employees are barred from political activities.
Meanwhile, former Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro Tuesday asked a Fulton County judge to dismiss the state case against him on the grounds that the acts he’s accused of committing are covered by federal, not state, law.
Chesebro is facing an Oct. 23 trial date after he invoked his right to a speedy trial.
Jones last week asked and received legal briefs from both sides about whether even Meadows is entitled to be tried in federal court if even one act mentioned in the indictment could be considered as falling under his job description.
Meadows took a massive gamble by testifying under oath in a hearing last week about his actions that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis says were part of a sprawling racketeering scheme to keep Trump in power.
Legal analysts say he slipped up by admitting that he participated in Trump’s fake electors scheme after initially denying that.
He also conceded that he helped Trump’s alleged plot in part because he feared “getting yelled at” by Trump, a less-than-airtight defense.
Meadows admitted visiting a Georgia vote recount center in December 2020, claiming he only stopped by because he happened to be visiting his children nearby.
The fact that Meadows’ high-powered legal team let him take the stand illustrates how high the stakes could be for him.
A trial in federal court would allow Meadows to make a motion for immunity, which could be his best ticket for avoiding criminal exposure even though it is a much higher legal bar than simply winning removal to federal court.
Meadows has long been considered the most important figure after Trump in his alleged election interference scheme.
He was surprisingly not mentioned as an unindicted co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment of Trump.
In the Georgia case, Meadows is one of 18 co-conspirators along with Trump. He pleaded not guilty and waived an arraignment that was scheduled for Wednesday pending the federal court decision.
Willis is charging him with engineering several aspects of Trump’s plot, including playing an active role in the fake electors scheme and Trump’s infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he demanded the official “find” just enough votes to outstrip Joe Biden in the Peach State.
Raffensperger said he considered the call to be on behalf of the Trump campaign, meaning Meadows would have been acting outside his role as White House chief of staff.
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