Even far-right judges are 'having none' of Mark Meadows' trial antics: Legal expert
December 18, 2023
11th Circuit Appeals Chief Judge William Pryor is an extremely right-wing jurist. Having been on a shortlist for former President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominations, Pryor has supported the power of states to ban LGBTQ sex acts, and hired a GOP activist who was kicked out of Turning Point USA for saying "I hate Blacks" as one of his law clerks.
But even he was completely unpersuaded by former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows' bid to interfere with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' racketeering case against the plot to overturn the 2020 election, said former solicitor general Neal Katyal on MSNBC Monday.
"A big loss in the Court of Appeals," said anchor Katie Phang, herself an attorney. "For those who are into this, William Pryor ... wrote this opinion where all three judges agreed that Mark Meadows is not going to get removal right now."
"I do not think this is quite the holiday gift, Katie, that Mark Meadows was hoping for," said Katyal. "It was, to put it mildly, a total body slam. As you see this opinion was written by Chief Judge Pryor, who is not just someone some people call conservative, he's a legendary conservative jurist, extremely conservative. And, he had none of it with respect to Meadows' arguments. Basically to summarize what this long opinion says ... look, if you are the White House chief of staff, launching a coup is not in your job description. That's the opinion, plain and simple."
"And so, I'm going to lean into you as our resident Supreme Court guru," Phang pressed him. "Do you think SCOTUS is going to take this up? Because you and I both know Meadows is going to appeal to the Supreme Court now."
"He can certainly try," said Katyal. "I don't think there's any chance that this case is going to be something that the Supreme Court is going to grant and rule for Mark Meadows. This is going nowhere fast."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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