Jeff Clark begged the federal court to give him more time to surrender to Fulton County because he didn't want to be "rushed." Legal analysts didn't think that it would fly, but it was still up in the air whether Meadows "delay for a day" request would be more persuasive.
Both failed, with a U.S. district court judge telling both men they had to submit to arrest by the deadline set by the district attorney last week.
Strategist and legal analyst Aaron Parnas said simply, "thoughts and prayers."
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Civil rights lawyer Andrew Laufer cracked up, and New York lawyer Joshua Stein replied, summing up the decision with a cartoon photo of Batman slapping Robin across the face.
New Mexico commercial and water litigator Owen Barcala called it "a rare bench slap by understatement."
Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega predicted that the Meadows motion would fail, in large part because she said that his lawyers misquoted one of the laws that he used as justification. The law Meadows tried to use claimed that he could skip arrest but the law was only for cases that were "decided on their merits," she explained. Not trials where there is a score of evidence to consider.
After the decision was posted, she explained, "Note that the focus of Judge Jones' denial of Meadows' motions for emergency relief is the need for an evidentiary hearing before any relief could be granted. Meadows's (sic) brazen attempt to skirt this obvious prerequisite was never going to succeed."
Georgia lawyer Anthony Michael Kreis said that the decision was something even a third-year legal student could have identified as a "dead-end stunt." He went on to call it an example of "legal clownery." He noted that Monday's hearing on the removal to federal court will be another matter.
As national security expert Marcy Wheeler pointed out, Judge Jones' decision shows how "ridiculous it is to assert federal jurisdiction over GA case before reviewing evidence."
"Another one bites the dust!" mocked former impeachment lawyer Norm Eisen. "Now Meadows loses HIS emergency motion to avoid turning himself in (as I predicted on @CNN ). He didn’t have enough for the extraordinary relief he sought."
Donald Trump reposted information about his "rally" at the jail on Thursday. Many of those same legal analysts expressed their concern that it would likely turn the courthouse into chaos.
"This isn't going to be a good scene," said lawyer Joshua Schiffer.
