Mark Meadows, who served as White House chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, has asked the Supreme Court to step in after he was indicted in Georgia as part of a effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Meadows was one of 19 people, including Trump, charged in the state last August in a sweeping racketeering case with the alleged goal of keeping the then-president in power. He served in the White House from March 2020 through the general election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden, and was a key figure as Trump and his allies clung to power.
Meadows, who has pleaded not guilty, had previously attempted to move the case from state to federal court, claiming he was acting in his official capacity and should be allowed to transfer the case out of Georgia. But a federal appeals court unanimously rejected his effort in December, upholding a lower court decision that found he had not proved his alleged crimes were related to his White House duties.
“Just as immunity protection for former officers is critical to ensuring that current and future officers are not deterred from enthusiastic service, so too is the promise of a federal forum in which to litigate that defense,” his attorneys wrote in a petition dated Friday. “A White House Chief of Staff facing criminal charges based on actions relating to his work for the President of the United States should not be a close call.”
AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
Meadows’ attorneys were blistering in their filing to the Supreme Court this weekend, pointing directly to the body’s recent decision granting Trump broad immunity for his actions while in office. They added the lower courts were “egregiously wrong” in their rulings.
“That decision makes clear,” the attorneys wrote of the Trump outcome, “that federal immunity fully protects former officers, often requires difficult and fact-intensive judgment calls at the margins, and provides not just a substantive immunity but a use immunity that protects against the use of official acts to try to hold a current or former federal officer liable for unofficial acts.”
“All of those sensitive disputes plainly belong in federal court.”
The Georgia effort is effectively on hold amid ongoing legal challenges after Fulton County District Attorney deals with claims of an improper relationship with a former lead prosecutor on the case. An appeal in the matter doesn’t have scheduled oral arguments until December, weeks after the election.
Meadows has also been indicted in Arizona over his efforts to help Trump in the waning days of his administration. He was charged with nine criminal counts in April alongside former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and 16 others. He has pleaded not guilty.