Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Mark Meadows and 16 of his co-defendants will be severed from Ken Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have requested a speedy trial in the Georgia election case. In response, Meadows withdrew an emergency request he'd made to halt his case while he appealed a decision not to transfer it to federal court.
He'd feared his trial could have happened before the appeal could be heard. Now that's he's been severed from the speedy trial, that's unlikely to happen.
Lawfare's Anna Bower posted Meadows' filing, which cites the new order to sever Chesebro and Powell, saying that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, "granted expedited briefing, indicating that it intends to rule on the merits of the appeal in a 'timely fashion.'"
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Meadow's filing the motion to pause had, from the outset, been bizarre, legal analysts posted on social media Thursday. And they said his canceling it was because he decided a motions panel could actually be less favorable to him than the appeals court.
University of Texas School of Law Professor Lee Kovarsky penned his own translation of this move: "We no longer care enough about our weird request for injunction to risk what THIS motions panel might say about the merits of our arguments."
"Hot take," posted Georgia law professor Anthony Michael Kreis. "Meadows don’t want the motions panel (that’s very unfavorable to him) preemptively steering the discourse and wants to avoid too much discussion about whether former officers are covered by the removal statute. So, this morning’s order is a gift that he wants to use."
Still, as Joyce White Vance pointed out, Meadows' appeal is going to start soon anyway. "Opening brief is due Monday," she tweeted. "The court set a very fast schedule."
