Fani Willis files brief destroying all Trump co-defendants' federal removal arguments

In a response to questioning from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis argued that none of the defendants in the Georgia election racketeering case are eligible to remove their cases to federal court, reported POLITICO's Kyle Cheney.

This comes after a series of Trump allies, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, and some of the false Georgia electors have moved for their cases to be shifted to federal court, where they would get a potentially more favorable judge and jury pool. Meadows was denied his request by a district court, but the 11th Circuit is reviewing the issue, and has asked both Willis' and Meadows' legal team to put forward evidence for their positions.

Meadows' argument that the law protected his efforts to overturn the election as the work of a federal officer simply doesn't hold up, argued Willis — and nor does it for anyone else.

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"The State of Georgia's prosecution of Appellant has no impact on the current operations of the federal government because Appellant no longer occupies a federal office and therefore plays no role whatsoever in any of the ongoing operations of the federal government," said the filing by Willis' office. "There is no longer a federal interest to protect, and this Court must presume that Congress recognized that fact ... intentionally and purposely."

In a competing filing, Meadows argued that legal precedent says former federal employees have the same rights as current federal employees — although, noted Cheney, the case law he cites is actually a judge who rejected Trump's motion to remove his state business fraud charges in New York to federal court.

Legal experts have suggested Meadows is the only defendant with any credible chance of getting his case removed to federal court in the first place.