Several of former President Donald Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia election racketeering case are trying to get their trials removed to federal court, where, the thinking goes, they would have a more favorable jury pool and possibly a more favorable judge to throw out some of the charges. But the only one of them who has any chance of winning these motions is former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
That's the view of former federal prosecutor Harry Litman, who walked through all of Trump's allies' cases on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" Monday.
"Harry, let's explore this a little bit," said anchor Ali Velshi. "There are five defendants who have asked to remove their cases to federal court. Mark Meadows, of course, is on that list. Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. Former Republican Party Chairman David Shafer. Georgia state Senator Shawn Still, who was one of the fake electors. And Cathy Latham, former GOP chair for Coffee County. Assuming there's any merit to any of these arguments, is Mark Meadows' argument substantially stronger than the rest of them?"
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"Yeah, I think so," Litman confirmed. "First, as you point out, the three electors, they really have very little to stand on. Jeffrey Clark, he's charged in the indictment with writing ... a false memo about Georgia. Not a very strong argument that he was acting as a federal official. Meadows has the best argument, and it's sort of how you conceptualize his conduct, that he was being chief of staff, the way he was supposed to be."
Furthermore, added Litman, "to that five I think you can add a sixth: Donald Trump."
The former president, Litman noted, "wants to wait 30 days, which is the statutory limit for maximum delay, but I think you will see him trying to remove. I think also, though, like the other five, his arguments are poor. So Meadows really is the one person who stands a chance of escaping his fate in this removal-slash-immunity effort."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Harry Litman says only Mark Meadows has a shot at federal removalyoutu.be
