A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied the latest attempt made by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move his criminal charges in the Georgia election-interference case to federal court.
Former president Donald Trump, Meadows, and 17 other defendants were indicted by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis in August for allegedly interfering in the 2020 presidential election after Trump lost. All 19 defendants were accused of running a criminal enterprise conspiring to undo the election results, violating Georgia’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The full Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Northern District of Georgia declined to hear Meadows’s bid, marking yet another failed attempt to remove his Georgia case to federal court.
The former Trump administration official argues he can move his state charges to the federal level because he was still serving in his official duties as chief of staff when the alleged racketeering crimes took place.
“The petition for rehearing en banc is denied, no judge in regular active service on the court having requested that the court be polled on rehearing en banc,” the two-page order states. “The petition for rehearing en banc is also treated as a petition for rehearing before the panel and is denied.”
This decision comes after a three-judge panel on the Eleventh circuit court unanimously rejected his appeal in December, three days after oral arguments were made. Meadows then wanted the full court to hear his appeal beyond the three judges, but that petition was ultimately rejected in the latest ruling.
“Because federal-officer removal under section 1442(a)(1) 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,” chief judge William Pryor wrote on December 18. “Simply put, whatever the precise contours of Meadows’s official authority, that authority did not extend to an alleged conspiracy to overturn valid election results.”
U.S. district court judge Steve Jones first ruled against Meadows’s request in September after finding that his actions “were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.” Before that, the Obama-appointed judge declined to stop Meadows’s state arrest while his bid for moving the case to federal court was still pending.
It remains to be determined whether Meadows plans on appealing the latest ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. If he doesn’t, he will face charges in state court.
Meadows faces two criminal counts: one for violating Georgia’s RICO Act and the other for soliciting a state official to violate his oath of office. The latter count involves a phone call Trump made to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021, when the former president asked him to “reevaluate” the 2020 election results in order to beat then-president-elect Joe Biden.