Mark Meadows’ Latest Failure in Court Is Terrible News for Donald Trump

On Friday, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows lost his bid to have his Georgia prosecution for his alleged role in attempting to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election moved to federal court.

The case will now be sent back to state court for trial on charges of violating the state’s RICO Act and soliciting a public officer to violate his oath. This was the foreseeable and correct outcome. It also means big trouble for Donald Trump and Meadows’ other co-defendants.

The decision denying removal is the likely precursor of the same result for former acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey B. Clark and three of Georgia’s fake electors, who have also asked to have their cases tried in federal court and whose cases are pending before the same judge who ruled against Meadows’ request.

Most importantly, the decision foreshadows the likely failure for Trump when he tries the same tack. His odd Georgia state court filing last week that he “may” petition for removal was one of those staged teases which, like the emperor himself, has no clothes. He is almost certain to file his removal petition on the last day he has do so, which is Tuesday.

In Meadows’ case, Judge Steve C. Jones ruled that Meadows was acting outside his role as a federal official when he allegedly assisted Trump in improperly interfering with Georgia’s officials in 2020.

Here’s what Judge Jones wrote in rejecting Meadows’ claims that the phone calls and meetings he arranged and participated in, and the emails he sent, were part of his duties: “The color of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff did not include working with or working for the Trump campaign. … Engaging in political activities exceeds the outer limits of the Office of the White House Chief of Staff.”

Jones’ conclusion is consistent with the purpose of the removal statute. Congress enacted it in the 19^th century at a time when federal officials needed protection from rebellious Southern states using prosecutions to interfere with federal officials doing their jobs.

By contrast, Judge Jones specifically observed, we have the reverse—federal officials like Meadows exceeding their official federal role as they tried to interfere with a state’s exclusive responsibility to administer federal elections within its boundaries.

Meadows has already appealed. The odds are against his success in the higher court now that the trial court has ruled against him, though one can never predict with certainty. There are a few important takeaways from this ruling.

First, it’s important to note how bad this news is for Trump. Earlier this month, former Senior Assistant Attorney General Monique Pressley told Julian Castro on MSNBC that she thought Meadows was acting as a stalking horse for Trump when his former chief of staff attempted to get his case moved to federal court.

Now that Meadows has lost on the removal issue, Trump is likely to lose when he tries it on his own this week.

In July, Trump failed in trying to remove his Manhattan trial, with a federal judge shooting down Trump’s claim that he acted as president when he allegedly made false business record entries relating to his “hush money” payments to Stormy Daniels.

While Trump didn’t testify in the New York case, back in Georgia late last month, Meadows did. It did not go well. Among other things, he got caught red-handed telling less than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on the stand.

After Meadows testified on direct examination that he played no role in the 2020 Trump campaign’s fake elector scheme in Georgia, Fulton County Assistant District Attorney Anna Cross confronted him with a copy of his December 2020 email saying, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for the states.”

The second important thing to recognize is that in addition to being bad news for Trump, this is possibly worse news for Clark and the fake electors still trying to have their cases removed.

The Fulton County grand jury indicted former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, ex-chair of the Coffee County GOP Cathleen Latham, and state Sen. Shawn Still. They are alleged to have fraudulently certified that they were official electors when they met and voted for Trump as the winner of the Georgia election.

Their removal claim is weaker than Meadows’ and will go before Judge Jones this week. They assert that the then-president directed them to participate in the fake elector scheme. The federal statute permits removal by those acting under the authority of federal officials.

The problem is that it was candidate Trump or his reelection campaign that directed them, not Trump acting as president.

Similarly flawed is the removal claim of Clark. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ position is sound that Clark was acting outside his official duties when he drafted a Dec. 28, 2020, letter falsely asserting that the Justice Department was investigating substantial election fraud in Georgia.

Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Deputy Attorney General Richard Donahue, Clark’s bosses, flatly refused to authorize the letter. They told him that it was tantamount to “the United States Justice Department meddling in the outcome of a presidential election.”

Plainly, that was not part of his job. Now Clark seems doomed to falter in the same way that Meadows did.

Third, it’s important to note that all of this is good news for the levers of justice and to see a fair trial for Trump and his 18 co-defendants.

Justice is always served when a court does not allow a defendant to manipulate a federal statute to their advantage in a way that contravenes its purpose.

In addition, the prospects for the outcomes being trusted are enhanced by having all indicted defendants tried in the same jurisdiction—rather than some defendants being tried federally and others in the state’s court. That result also promotes the economy of judicial resources.

As many have observed, the jury pools in state and federal courts in Atlanta are different. The federal pool pulls jurors from eight counties other than Fulton, home to Atlanta. Those other counties include Cherokee County, one of the most pro-Trump counties in the state.

There’s one more reason why Judge Jones’ remand of Meadows’ case might help increase public trust should there be guilty verdicts.

The random assignment of Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee to preside over the case makes it far more difficult for Trump or anyone else to argue that an outcome they didn’t like occurred because of a “rigged trial” under a judge with a liberal background. McAfee led his college chapter of the conservative Federalist Society.

McAfee is relatively new to the bench but enjoys a solid reputation, both as a former prosecutor and as a judge.

He showed it by quickly ordering an Oct. 23, 2023, trial for Kenneth Chesebro on Aug. 24, the day after his speedy trial motion. In doing so, McAfee showed he’s not one for dallying, setting the trial 11 days before the Nov. 3 deadline.

Then, on Sept. 6, McAfee showed the same on live TV, quickly and professionally denying defendant Chesebro’s and Sidney Powell’s motions to sever their trials from each other. His approach was balanced, indicating skepticism about the state’s position that all defendants should be tried together on Oct. 23. He scheduled hearings promptly for further motions.

These are the signs of a good judge. Now that it appears likely that the cases will stay with Judge McAfee, that’s also a good sign for justice.