Federal Judge Rejects Meadows’s Request To Transfer Case To Federal Court; Ruling Aligns With Brief Submitted By Prominent Judges & Attorneys
On Friday, September 8, U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones in the Northern District of Georgia ruled against Mark Meadows’s request to have his criminal 2020 election interference case be moved from state court to federal court.
Meadows is one of 19 defendants, including former President Donald Trump, who was criminally charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with election interference in their effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in Georgia.
In sending the case back to Fulton County Superior Court where the case was initially filed, Judge Jones wrote: “This Order addresses a relatively narrow question: Has Meadows carried his burden of demonstrating that removal of the State of Georgia’s criminal prosecution against him is proper under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)? Having considered the arguments and evidence, the Court concludes that Meadows has not met his burden.”
While Meadows was, as then-President Trump’s Chief of Staff, a federal officer, the judge concluded that “Meadows has not met even the ‘quite low’ threshold for removal. […] The evidence adduced at the hearing establishes that the actions at the heart of the State’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”
The judge’s opinion continued:
“Meadows has not shown that the actions that triggered the State’s prosecution related to his federal office. The Constitution, federal statute and regulation of executive branch employees, and the purpose of Section 1442 support this conclusion. Meadows’s alleged association with post-election activities was not related to his role as White House Chief of Staff or his executive branch authority.”
Judge Jones’s ruling aligned with the amicus brief, filed on August 23 by a group of eight prominent judges and attorneys who served as high-level appointees in Republican Administrations. The amicus brief opposed the effort by Meadows to remove his case to federal court.
The eight amici included J. Michael Luttig, former Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; Charles A. Fried, U.S. Solicitor General in the Reagan Administration; and Donald B. Ayer, Deputy Attorney General in the George H.W. Bush Administration.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Seth P. Waxman of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, LLP was the lead attorney on the amicus brief. Other attorneys on the brief included: Daniel S. Volchok and Joseph M. Meyer of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, LLP; Democracy 21 Education Fund President Fred Wertheimer; and John Thomas Morgan III, an attorney based in Decatur, Georgia.
The amicus brief concluded: “The Constitution entrusts the administration of federal elections to the States. It deliberately insulates such administration from the President and his staff. Consistent with that constitutional design, the federal-officer removal statute does not permit removal here.”
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