Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows could beat his ex-boss to the steps of the Supreme Court over a bid to remove his Georgia criminal racketeering case to federal court, according to legal experts.
Meadows is waiting on U.S. District Judge Steve Jones’s decision over whether he can remove his case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from state to federal court. The former chief of staff contends that the actions surrounding his charges, including establishing calls and contacting state officials, were part of his official duties.
LABOR DAYS: BIDEN FACES GOP PRESSURE TO ORDER FEDERAL WORKERS BACK TO THE OFFICE
Although Trump is facing more indictments and the countdown to the 2024 presidential election, his co-defendant in the sprawling Georgia racketeering indictment has a greater likelihood of reaching the Supreme Court first, Atlanta-based defense attorney Philip Holloway told the Washington Examiner.
Regardless of how Jones rules, his decision “will likely be appealed” to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, Holloway said.
“The appeals court ruling will set precedent. And if the Supreme Court were to ever rule on the case, that would of course set national precedent,” he added, noting that four other defendants listed in the indictment are seeking similar removal bids, while Trump’s team has not filed for removal.
Jones himself told Meadows, lawyers, and reporters who were there during an Aug. 28 evidentiary hearing that his case would likely establish precedent for future cases, citing a lack of case law to guide his pending decision. The former chief of staff’s first of two counts under the indictment surrounds a violation of Georgia’s racketeering law and contains a number of overt acts attributed to Meadows.
One day later, Jones asked the parties in a supplemental filing whether at least one overt act Meadows is accused of would be sufficient for removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), the statute being cited over his removal bid.
Willis responded in Aug. 31 court filings that Meadows committed crimes as part of a sweeping scheme beyond his line of work to aid Trump’s pursuit of overturning the election, contending that even one official act shouldn’t be enough to move the case. Meadows’s counsel filed a response later that evening, arguing for removal “even if the State has charged some acts beyond Mr. Meadows’s official duties, because what controls is Mr. Meadows’s articulation of his federal defense, not the State’s articulation of its state charges.”
Willis wants to have the case sent back to state court, and she’s adamant about trying all of the defendants together in the state forum. Meadows is looking for a more favorable jury pool in federal court that is removed from the Democratic-leaning Fulton County, which also would shield his case from being publicly televised due to the more relaxed state court rules.
For Holloway, he believes Jones could be poised to rule against Meadows on the grounds that he was “acting on behalf of the campaign and not acting in his official capacity” as chief of staff.
Other legal experts, such as former Trump impeachment defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, suggested that Trump’s counsel is likely watching Meadows’s attorneys ahead of its motion to seek removal as well.
“So [Trump], too, is going to try to come under this statute, and there are very, very few precedents on it,” Dershowitz said during the Sean Spicer Show on Monday.
“And so the case may get fairly quickly to the Supreme Court because if they lose, they may seek what’s called an interlocutory appeal or mandamus — some way of getting the case from the trial court, up to the Court of Appeals, and then eventually to the Supreme Court. And that may also delay the trial,” Dershowitz said, emphasizing it’s “all about timing.”
Chuck Rosenberg, a former top federal prosecutor and counsel to then-FBI Director James Comey, conversely said Meadows could appeal Jones’s order swiftly, telling PBS NewsHour last month that the court record in this case is “relatively small” and “doesn’t have to take a long time.”
Jones told Meadows to enter a plea in state court if he had yet to receive a decision by Sept. 6. Meadows this week entered a not guilty plea and waived his appearance before Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, as did every other defendant in the case by Tuesday afternoon.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
McAfee will hold his first livestreamed hearing since the 19-count indictment was handed up to Willis in August at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. The judge will be considering motions filed by attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell as they seek to have their cases tried separately from each other and the 17 other defendants, including Trump.
McAfee also asked Willis’s team to come prepared with a “good-faith estimate” of the time that is needed for the state to present its case during a joint trial of all 19 defendants, a question that could affect Meadows’s case depending on the resolve of his pursuit to stay in federal court.
