Sovereign citizen ruling could be bad news for Trump co-defendants in Georgia: analysis

A federal appeals court in Atlanta issued a ruling that could have possible implications for Donald Trump and his co-defendants in the Georgia racketeering case.

Timothy Pate, a self-proclaimed sovereign citizen who also goes by Akenaten Ali, filed bogus liens and involuntary bankruptcy petitions against property owned by federal officials he claimed owed him a total of $93 million, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Wednesday that legal expert Anthony Michael Kreis says could impact removal proceedings for Trump's co-defendants.

"Pate, who says he's the 'heir to the kingdom of Morocco,' filed liens against property owned by individuals Pate thought wronged him including a former IRS Commissioner and a former Treasury Secretary," Kreis wrote. "Pate was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1521, which criminalizes retaliatory liens."

"However, retaliatory liens are unlawful when made against persons included under 18 U.S.C. § 1114," he added. "So, who are those people? '[A]ny officer or employee of the United States... while such officer or employee is engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties.'"

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Kreis believes that sounds like the removal statute, which some of Trump's co-defendants are citing to have their criminal cases moved from Fulton County to federal court, but the attorney added there is significant differences between that statute and the liens law.

"In Pate, the government argued the retaliatory liens were unlawful because federal law's usage of 'on account of the performance of official duties' means former federal officials are protected against these bad liens when the motivation is their past status as federal officials," Kreis wrote. "The 11th Cir said, 'no.' When Pate filed the retaliatory liens against the property, the owners were not in federal service. The court rejected that the statute's language means the inquiry should be about why the lien was filed. Rather, the key question is when it was filed."

The removal statute expressly allows current and former federal officers to remove their cases if state courts take action against duties they performed in their official capacity, and Kreis said the ruling suggested the appeals judges would not be inclined to allow Trump's co-defendants to move their prosecutions into federal court.

"I, for one, was skeptical of that argument and remain so despite the appellate court's inquiries," Kreis wrote. "However, the decision in Pate makes me think the 11th Circuit is ready to disagree with me. I want to be very, very, very clear. These are not identical statutes and so mapping one issue onto the other is not perfectly predictive nor controlling, but it is fair to say this not the kind of news you want if you're Mark Meadows, Jeff Clark, or the among the GOP electors."