The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to let Mark Meadows - former congressman in western North Carolina 17th Congressional district - move his Georgia election subversion case to federal court, effectively barring the former chief of staff during Donald Trump’s first term from claiming immunity from those charges.
Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who served as White House chief of staff late in Trump’s term, was indicted last year in Fulton County, Georgia, on racketeering and other charges tied to phone calls and meetings in which Trump leaned on state officials to change the outcome of the 2020 election in the state. Meadows has pleaded not guilty and Trump won election to a second term last week.
Meadows wanted to have his case heard in federal – rather than state – court, where he would be able to raise immunity claims.
Meadows’ attorney George Terwilliger III says he still believes Meadows can fight for immunity from the charges, because of federal authority in the case.
“We are confident that eventually Mr. Meadows’ Constitutional Immunity under the Supremacy Clause will lead to his exoneration in these politically motivated state prosecutions. The Supreme Court’s not hearing this case now only means that we will have to continue to assert his rights and his substantive innocence in state courts for the time being,” Terwilliger said in a statement Tuesday.
“In the meantime, allowing the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to stand puts all former federal officers, including those soon leaving office, at risk of being left to the wiles of every politically hostile district attorney or state AG in the country without what for 200 years has been access to a federal court for a fair hearing.”
The Atlanta-based 11th Circuit ruled last year that the Georgia prosecution against Meadows should continue in state court, concluding that former federal officials are not covered by that statute “removing” state cases against government officials to federal court. Importantly, Chief Judge William Pryor’s opinion also said that “the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related Meadows’s official duties.”
Though Meadows is seeking a different form of immunity than the Supreme Court granted Trump earlier this year, his appeal nevertheless relied heavily on the court’s divisive decision from July. In that decision, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority relied in part on the idea that the president’s power would be hampered if he faced prosecution for his official actions as soon as he ended his term.
“This court reiterated that the threat posed by prosecutions against federal officers for actions relating to their federal functions does not evaporate once they leave federal office,” Meadows’ lawyers told the Supreme Court in their appeal this summer. “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.”
The Supreme Court, however, did not grant immunity for unofficial actions and lower courts found that Meadows’ actions on behalf were not related to his official duties.
While Meadows’ case raises concerns about “unscrupulous prosecutors” pursuing unfounded prosecutions against former federal officials, prosecutors in Georgia argued that possibility “remains entirely ‘hypothetical.’” Meadows “assumes that the scenario is inevitable and sure to be widespread, but his references to the overheated words of opinion editorials, cannot suffice to demonstrate that a new era of ubiquitous prosecution of former federal officials is at hand,” they told the high court.
The Georgia case has been at a standstill while an appeals court considers ethics allegations against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Willis, who is a Democrat, also won reelection last week.
Meadows has also sought to move his criminal case related to the 2020 election in Arizona to federal court but failed to convince a judge in September.S
