Ex-Trump Aide Meadows Rejected by Supreme Court in Georgia Case

The US Supreme Court refused to shift the Georgia election-interference prosecution of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows into federal court, rejecting an appeal from the onetime top aide to Donald Trump.

The justices without comment left in place an appeals court decision that said Meadows can’t invoke a law that lets federal officers have their cases transferred. The three-judge panel said Meadows is no longer a government employee and wasn’t engaged in official business when he allegedly helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 results.

Meadows and Trump were among 19 people charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with taking part in a scheme to violate state racketeering law. Prosecutors say Meadows took a series of steps to help try to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, including arranging a key phone call in which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to flip the outcome there.

Trials in the cases are on hold until a Georgia appeals court decides whether Willis should be removed because of a romantic relationship with one of the prosecutors. Four defendants have pleaded guilty. Willis won reelection on Nov. 5.

Trump’s election for a new term as president could add another complication. His lawyers are preparing to seek dismissal of the case against him on grounds that it would interfere with his constitutional duties. Because the prosecution is a state one, Trump as president won’t have power to order Willis to drop the case.

Moving the case into federal court might have given Meadows a more sympathetic set of jurors by broadening the geographic area for the jury pool.

Immunity Ruling

At the Supreme Court, Meadows tried unsuccessfully to leverage the court’s recent decision partially immunizing Trump from prosecution. Meadows said the July 1 ruling underscored the importance of ensuring that the president and top aides can do their jobs without fear of facing retaliatory prosecutions later.

“As both Congress and this court well understand, empowering state prosecutors to call open season on federal officers and then force them to defend on the state’s home turf would pose a very real threat to our republic’s stability regardless whether the officers are current or former,” he argued.

A three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Meadows, saying his position couldn’t be squared with the language of the so-called federal officer removal law.

Willis and her team urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal without granting a hearing. She pointed to Trump’s decision not to seek transfer of the case against him, saying his stance decision undercuts any suggestion that Meadows can’t get a fair trial in Georgia state court.

The 11th Circuit “applied long-established principles of statutory interpretation to arrive at its holding, and review is neither necessary nor urgent,” Willis argued.

The case is Meadows v. Georgia, 24-97.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

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