White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows may have blundered himself into deeper legal peril, a legal expert said Thursday.
University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarsky said in a social media post that Meadows, who testified earlier this week in a hearing to have his Georgia election conspiracy case moved from Fulton County to federal court, failed to address a key requirement.
Meadows was required to make a colorable federal defense, indicating his actions were within the scope of his role as the former president’s chief of staff.
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But Kovarsky writes that Meadows made no such arguments in support of that claim and that “his is a catastrophic blunder - think land war in Asia…”
“I'm not sure what the Meadows legal team, highly regarded in the media, was thinking here.”
Kovarsky argues that in racketeering cases, Meadows is legally responsible for the actions of all engaged in a conspiracy.
“All conspirators bear criminal RICO liability for all crimes of all co-conspirators, whether they committed overt acts or not,” Kovarsky writes. “Meadows does have some nice-sounding case law on this question, although none of it (as far as I can tell) addresses the unique setting of a conspiracy charge.”
Kovarsky argues that a “defense is not ‘colorable’ unless it is capable of defeating the count.”
“And on this argument, it's not just that Willis ‘gets the better of it.’ Meadows lawyers didn't even get to it. He's in big trouble.”
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