Meadows beefs up legal team, asks appeals court to rehear bid to move Georgia charges

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows asked an appeals court to reconsider his attempt to move his Georgia 2020 election racketeering charges to federal court, while also revealing he has brought on a legal heavyweight as the battle moves forward.

In court papers filed Tuesday evening, Meadows asked the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear his bid after a three-judge panel of the court rejected Meadows’s arguments last month. The battle could ultimately reach the Supreme Court.

Succeeding in moving to federal court would give Meadows a pathway to try to assert immunity and get his charges tossed, a tactic that could imperil Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s (D) prosecution of Meadows and other co-defendants, including former President Trump. Willis opposes moving the Meadows case.

It would also broaden the jury pool to less-heavily Democratic areas of northern Georgia, have Meadows’s case overseen by a federal judge and doom chances of his trial being televised.

Then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows speaks with reporters outside the White House, Monday, Oct. 26, 2020, in Washington. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in Donald Trump’s White House, described then-chief of staff Mark Meadows’ handling of papers in a new book set to be released Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2023. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book, “Enough.” (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Meadows also revealed Tuesday that he has expanded his legal team to include Paul Clement, who served as U.S. solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration and has previously been floated as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court.

Clement has argued more than 100 cases before the justices, including the court’s three biggest Second Amendment cases in recent years, a controversial dispute concerning a football coach and school prayer and defenses of the Bush administration in many cases related to the war on terrorism.

Meadows also brought on Erin Murphy, a prominent appellate advocate who is Clement’s firm’s other named partner, and associate Zachary Lustbader, court filings show. Meadows also continues to be represented by his existing attorneys.

Meadows, who was indicted alongside Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants, faces two charges over accusations he unlawfully attempted to overturn President Biden’s victory in the Peach State in 2020. Meadows pleaded not guilty.

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Under federal law, federal officials can move their criminal charges from state to federal court, a process called removal, if the allegations relate to any act “under color of such office” and the official can present a plausible federal defense.

Meadows argues he should be able to move his charges because he was acting within his capacity as White House chief of staff.

But the 11th Circuit panel, comprising one Republican and two Democratic appointees, ruled last month that only currently serving officials can move their charges under the removal statute.

“That proposition is so novel and expectation-defying that it did not even occur to Georgia to advance it until it was prompted by a supplemental briefing order,” Clement and the other attorneys wrote in court filings Tuesday. “The panel’s decision is profoundly wrong—it defies text, precedent, and common sense—and profoundly consequential.”