Mark Meadows makes the first move in Georgia indictment — and demands the case be moved
August 15, 2023
Former Donald Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows requests that the Georgia indictment case be brought into federal court instead of state court, ABC News reported Tuesday.
If the case were moved outside of Fulton County, Georgia, the state's strict racketeering laws would still apply, but it would be presided over by a federal judge and a different kind of jury. Willis would still be running the trial, however. Perhaps most importantly, it would also mean the case wouldn't be broadcast on television.
Meadows joins Trump along with 17 other co-conspirators charged for efforts to overthrow the 2020 election.
The request from Meadows comes from his lawyer George Terwilliger and Atlanta-based attorney Joseph Englert. The lawyers are citing a federal law that requires the removal of criminal cases from state to federal court when someone is charged for actions they took involving federal officials.
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It's a move that legal analysts anticipated Donald Trump would make, but in the end, it was Meadows.
Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal spoke to the effort anticipating that it won't work.
"There is a statute that goes back to the Civil War that allows in certain instances state charges, state trials to be moved to federal court," Katyal explained. Willis "would still be running the trial. It will be under Georgia law but it would take place in federal court, which notably doesn't have cameras in it. And so, I think Trump, who is afraid like a vampire of sunlight, will really want to move this into federal court. And for that reason alone, I think it will fail."
He went on to say he doesn't expect the argument to go all the way to the Supreme Court because the statute "requires the performance of some official federal function, and while Trump has — any president has — lots of roles over elections in general, there's one election in which our founders, several places in the Constitution, made clear that the president doesn't have a role. And that's with respect to the electoral college. The president is entirely cut out of that process. And for the best of reasons. Our founders understood that otherwise, a president could engage in self-dealing. They have the most self-interest of any living individual over the way the electoral college operates and how it counts votes. So, the founders cut them out entirely."
While it might not work for Trump, legal analyst Harry Litman said that it might work for other defendants like Meadows.
ABC News said that Trump is still expected to ask for the case to be moved to federal court.
Meadows has thus far given an excuse that he was merely following orders.
See his full explainer in the video below or at the link here.
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