A law professor on Friday said that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ gaffe may have undercut his request to have his Georgia election conspiracy case moved to federal court.
University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarsky in a thread on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, notes to move the case to federal court, Meadows would need to convince a judge that the conduct for which he was indicted “was no more than ‘necessary and proper’ to his official duties.”
Meadows is among 18 co-defendants who along with Donald Trump were indicted by a Fulton County grand jury last week on allegations they conspired to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
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“CRUCIALLY, he has to have (a) subjectively believed the indicted conduct was necessary and proper and (b) reasonably believed it,” Kovarsky writes.
Kovarsky notes that court documents show Meadows “sort of admits this in passing,” but that he neglects to mention the "necessary and proper" standard.
“YIKES,” Kovarsky writes. “He gets very distracted with arguing that there's no "political exception" to the immunity. This is sort of transparent re-framing of the issue. Willis will say (correctly) that she's not seeking an ‘exception.’"
“She'll say that the immunity doesn't exist for that activity in the first place. The reason is that indicted conduct cannot be necessary and proper to the federal office - and therefore can't be covered by the immunity if it's unlawful under the Hatch Act, which bars many federal officials from engaging in political activity. But even if there's not a Hatch Act violation, Meadows *still* makes no attempt to show that (1) he REASONABLY believed the indicted conduct was (2) NECESSARY AND PROPER to his office.”
