Supreme Court won’t hear Mark Meadows’ bid to sideline Georgia criminal case
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a bid by Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to transfer his criminal election-fraud case in Georgia to federal court, part of a move that he hoped could derail the case altogether.
No justice indicated any dissent from the high court’s action, which was included in a routine order list and taken without comment or explanation.
The decision leaves in place a ruling by a panel of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that Meadows — as a former government official — is not eligible to wrest his case away from Georgia’s state courts.
Meadows had hoped that shifting the case to federal court would increase his chances of having the charges against him thrown out. Meadows argues that his work for Trump is protected from prosecution because it stemmed from his official duties as White House chief of staff.
The decision is a reminder that even though Trump’s election last week has largely derailed the criminal cases against him, many of his closest allies in 2020 are still facing significant potential punishment for their efforts to help him subvert that election.
When Trump returns to office, he will have the power to grant pardons or get his subordinates to dismiss federal criminal cases. But his clemency power won’t extend to state cases like the one in Georgia.
Despite the adverse ruling, the Georgia case — which charged Trump and 18 other defendants with conspiring to corrupt Georgia’s 2020 election results — is still likely months away from going to trial. The case has been on hold for months while the lead prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, fights allegations of a financial conflict of interest over her romantic relationship with a top prosecutor she hired to help manage the historic probe.
Meadows is facing criminal charges in Arizona as well and has similarly failed to gain traction to transfer that case to federal court.
