ATLANTA — A federal appeals court on Monday unanimously rejected an effort by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move the Georgia election interference case against him from state to federal court.
Meadows was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in August on charges they illegally conspired to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. Meadows, who has pleaded not guilty, had sought to move his case to federal court, claiming protections under a federal statute that allows federal officials to move legal cases against them from state to federal court when the charges are tied to official duties.
A three-judge appellate court panel heard oral arguments on Meadows’s appeal Friday. Chief Judge William Pryor and Judges Robin Rosenbaum and Nancy Abudu appeared skeptical of Meadows’s claims that his alleged actions outlined in the Fulton County indictment were tied to his official government duties.
In Monday’s 49-page opinion, written by Pryor, the court ruled the federal removal statute “does not apply to former federal officers, and even if it did, the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related to Meadows's official duties.”
“Even if Meadows were ‘an officer,’ his participation in an alleged conspiracy to overturn a presidential election was not related to his official duties,” Pryor wrote, affirming the earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, who rejected Meadows’s removal effort.
George Terwilliger, an attorney for Meadows, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meadows has the option of appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision is another legal setback for Meadows, one of five defendants who have sought to move their cases out of state court. The other four — former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Cathy Latham, David Shafer and Shawn Still, Georgia Republicans who served as Trump electors — also have pending appeals before the 11th Circuit after lower courts rejected their removal requests.
The appellate court ruling marks another legal victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), who is leading the prosecution of Trump and his allies and is seeking to try all 15 remaining defendants in the case in a single trial beginning in August.